'■■! 








Class JSt&aT. 
Book_^/-_ 




ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



LONDON 

FEINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 

NEW-STBEEI SQUABS 



A MANUAL 



OF 



ENGLISH LITERATURE, 



HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. 



WITH AN APPENDIX ON ENGLISH METRES. 



THOMAS ARNOLD, B.A. 

Formerly Scholar of Univ. Coll. Oxford, and late Prof, of Eng. Lit. in the 
Cath. Univ. of Ireland. 




LONDON: 
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. 

1862. 



V 




PREFACE. 



The substance of the following work was delivered in 
the form of lectures to students, and it is for the use of 
students that it is principally intended. At the same time 
I trust that it may prove not uninteresting to the general 
reader. While conceding the praise which is justly their 
due to existing compilations — to the works of Craik and 
Spalding, and the epitome published by Chambers, — one 
may say without offence that the point of view taken in 
them lies too far north, and that Scottish authors receive 
a little more than relative justice from these Scottish 
critics. To profound research the present work makes no 
pretension : in this respect I cheerfully acknowledge the 
immeasurable superiority of the really learned work of 
Professor Craik; but if I have succeeded in presenting 
an intelligible and connected view of at least the more 
popular portion of our literature, as it appears to an 
ordinary Englishman who has paid attention to the sub- 
ject, my book will, I think, fill a vacant niche, and my 
endeavours will not be without a certain value, whether 
at home or in foreign countries. 

Desiring, if possible, that the work should be widely 
useful as an educational manual, I have thought it a duty 
to adapt it for general circulation, by avoiding, as far as 



VI PEEFACE. 

was practicable, debatable topics, and carefully respect- 
ing religious susceptibilities. 

The arrangement of the subject-matter according to 
two distinct principles — that of the order of time and that 
of the order of thought — is a novel one : whether it be 
also sound, let the critics decide. I will only say that in 
my lectures I have followed this plan, and that it has 
appeared to be successful,, and to engage the attention of 
the hearers better than an unbroken adherence either to 
the historical or the critical mode of treatment. 



CONTENTS. 



HISTOEICAL SECTION. 

PEELEVLTNAKY CHAPTEE, 

SECTION I. ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD : A.D. 449 1066. 

Character of Anglo-Saxon Literature. — "Works in Latin : Bede, Aleuin. — 
Poetry: Beowulf, Caedmon. — Prose: Alfred, Saxon Chronicle. Pages 1 — 7 

SECTION II. NORMAN PERIOD : 1066 1350. 

Decline of the Saxon tongue. — Later portion of the Saxon Chronicle. — 
Impulse given to Learning by the Moors. — Scholastic Philosophy : St. 
Anselm; Abelard; St. Bernard; Peter Lombard; Alexander Hales; 
Duns Scotus ; "William of Occam. — Historians and Cheoniciebs : "William 
of Malmesbury ; Geoffrey of Monmouth ; Matthew Paris. — Law and 
Medicine : Grlanvile ; Salerno. — Science : Eoger Bacon. — Means of 
Education : Universities ; Monasteries ; invention of Paper. — Poetry : 
Leonine Verses ; Troubadours ; Trouveres ; Eomances ; Fabliaux ; Satires ; 
Historical Poems ; English Poets ; Ehyming Chroniclers, Layamon ; 
Eobert of Gloucester ; Eobert Mannyng ; Eeligious Poems ; Occasional 
Poems 8 — 44 

CHAPTEE I. 

EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD: 1350 — 1450. 

Latin and French Compositions ; growth of the English Language and 
Literature ; Chaucer, Sketch of his Life ; Chronology of his "Writings.— 
Grower, Langlande, Occleve, Lydgate, Minot. — Scottish Poets : Barbour, 
James I.— Prose Writhes : Mandevile, Chaucer, "Wycliffe . 45—61 

a 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE II. 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING: 1450 1558. 

Decline of Literature; invention of Printing; foundation of Schools and 
Universities. — Poetry: Hawes, Skelton, Surrey, "Wyat; first Poet Laureate. 
— Scottish Poets : Henryson, Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Lyndsay. — 
Learning : Grocyn ; Colet ; the Humanities ; state of the Universities. — 
Prose Writers : — Fortescue, Caxton, Leland, More ; Chroniclers (Fabyam 
Hall, Grafton) ; Bale ; Theological Writers : Eoger Ascham, Pages 62 — 82 

CHAPTEE III. 

ELIZABETHAN PERIOD : 1558 — 1625. 

Brilliant Period of our Literature ; connected with the social Prosperity of the 
Country. — Poets and Dramatists : Spenser, Daniel, &c. ; origin of the 
English Drama ; Dramatic Unities : Marlowe ; Shakspeare, Sketch of his 
Life ; his Plays; BenJonson ; Beaumont and Fletcher. — Prose Writers: 
Novels ; Essays ; Pamphlets ; Criticism. Sidney, Bacon, Spenser, Gascoyne. 
— Historians : Holinshed, Bacon, Ealeigh, Knolles.'— Theologians : 
Puritan Writers : Hooker, Donne, Allen, Parsons. — Philosophy : Lord 
Bacon 83—108 

CHAPTEE IV. 

CIVIL WAR PERIOD : 1625 — 1700. 

Historical Sketch of the leading political Events. — Poetry : the Fantastic 
School ; Donne, Cowley, Cleveland, &c. ; Crashaw; Song-writers. Milton; 
Sketch of his literary Life ; Wither ; Marvell. Dryden ; Sketch of his 
literary Life ; Eoscommon ; Butler. Heroic Plays ; Comedy of Manners : 
Jeremy Collier. — Learning: Usher, Selden, Gale, &c. — Prose Fiction: 
Bunyan. — History and Biography : Milton, Ludlow, Clarendon, &c. ; 
Wood's Athenee, Pepys, Evelyn, &c. — Theology : Hall, Jeremy Taylor, 
Gother, Baxter, &c. — Philosophy : Hobbes, Locke. — Essay Writers : 
HaE, Felltham, Browne.— Science : Newton . . . 109—152 

CHAPTEE V. 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY : 1700 1800. 

Historical Sketch, general characteristics.— Poetry from 1700 to 1745 
Pope: Sketch of his literary Life; Addison; Parnell; Swift; Thomson 
Prior; Garth; &c— The Drama : Addison, Eowe, &c; Prose Comedy 



CONTENTS. IX 

Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Gay. — Learning, 1700 — 1745 : Bentley, Lardner. — 
Prose Fiction: Swift, Defoe. Pamphleteers : Swift; Arbuthnot. Perio- 
dical Miscellany : Tatler, Spectator, Guardian, &c. Satirical Works ; Swift. 
History, 1700—1745: Burnet, Rapin — Poetey, 1745—1800: Johnson, 
Gray, Cowper, Burns, &c. The Deama ; Home, Johnson, Goldsmith, 
Sheridan.— Peose Fiction, 1745—1800 : Eichardson, Fielding, Smollett, 
Sterne, Goldsmith, Miss Burney. — Oeatoet : Chatham, Burke, &c. 
Pamphleteers; Junius, Burke, Johnson.— Histoey, 1745—1800: Hume, 
Kobertson, Gibbon. Biographers : Boswell, &c— Theology : the English 
Deists ; Bentley, Berkeley ; Warburton ; Methodism ; Middleton.— Phi- 
losophy : Berkeley, Hume, Eeid, Butler, Paley. — Political Science : Hume, 
Burke, Godwin. — Political Economy : Adam Smith. — Criticism : Burke, 
Keynolds, &c Pages 153—210 

CHAPTER VI. 

MODERN TIMES: 1800 1850. 

Reaction against the Ideas of the Eighteenth Century ; Theory of the Sponta- 
neous in Poetry. — Poetey : Sir Walter Scott ; Sketch of his literary Life ; 
Keats, Shelley, Byron, Crabbe, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Wordsworth, 
Moore.— Peose Weitees: summary account of . . . 211 — 236. 



CRITICAL SECTION. 

CHAPTER I. 

Definition of Literature: Poetry and Prose-writings : Classification of Poetical 
Compositions ; — Epic Poetey : the Paradise Lost ; — Deamatic Poetey : 
its kinds ; Shakspeare, Addison, Ben Jonson, Milton. — Heeoic Poetey : 
The Bruce, the Mirrour for Magistrates ; the Campaign. — Narrative 
Poetry ; 1. Romances, Sir Isumbras ; 2. Tales, Chaucer and the Canter- 
bury Tales, Falconer, Prior, Crabbe, Parnell; 3. Allegories; Vision of 
Piers Plowman, Flower and the Leaf, Spenser's Faery Queen, Castle of 
Indolence ; Fables : Gay, Mrs. Thrale, Merrick ; 4. Romantic Poems : 
Scott's Lay and others ; Byron's Oriental Tales ; Lalla Rookh ; 5. His- 
torical Poems ; Rhyming Chroniclers, Dryden's Annus Mirabilis. — Di- 
dactic Poetry: The Hind and Panther; Essay on Man; Essay on 
Criticism ; Vanity of Human Wishes. — Satirical Poetry : of three kinds, 
moral, personal, political; Satires of Donne, Hall, and Swift; Pope's 
Satires ; Moral Essays, the Dunciad ; Dryden's M'Flecknoe, English Bards 
andScotch Reviewers, Hudibras, Absalom and Ahitophel, Moore's Satires ; 
the Vicar of Bray. — Pastoral Poetry: Spenser, Pope, Shenstone.— 



CONTENTS. 

Descriptive Poetry : Poly-olbion, Cooper's Hill, the Seasons. — Lyrical 
Poetry : its kinds ; devotional, loyal, patriotic, amatory, bacchanalian, 
martial; specimens of each kind. — Elegiac Poetry; Fidele, the Cast- 
away, Lycidas, Adonais. — Miscellaneous Poetry; 1. Poems founded on 
the Passions and Affections ; 2. Poems of Sentiment and Beflection ; Childe 
Harold, "Wordsworth's ' Ode ; ' 3, Poems of Imagination and Fancy ; 4. 
Philosophical Poetry ; the Excursion .... Pages 239 — 339 



CHAPTEE II. 

Prose "Writings: 1. Prose Fiction ; Classification of Works of Fiction; His- 
torical Novels : Scott ; Novels of high Life : Bichardson ; Novels of middle 
Life : Fielding, Miss Austen ; Novels of low Life : Dickens, Smollett. — 2. 
Works of Satire, Wit, and Humour : Tale of a Tub ; Battle of the 
Books; the Anti- Jacobin ; Sterne; Sydney Smith. — 3. Oratory: it^ kinds ; 
Jeremy Taylor ; Burke ; Journalism ; Pamphleteering, — illustrated from 
Milton, Swift, and Byron. — 4. History: contemporary and retrospec- 
tive ; Clarendon, Ealeigh, G-ibbon, Lord Bacon. — Biography : its Divi- 
sions ; Diaries ; Letters. — 5. Theology : its Branches ; leading Works in 
each. — 6. Philosophy: Logic : Bacon, Whately, Mill, Hamilton. — Psycho- 
logy : 1. Moral Philosophy, Butler, &c. ; 2. Intellectual Philosophy, Locke, 
Eeid, Hamilton. — Metaphysics : Cudworth, More, Berkeley, Hume, Cole- 
ridge. — Political Science: Filmer, Hobbes, Milton, Burke. — Essays: 
Bacon, Felltham, Foster, &c. — Criticism: 1. Philosophical: Bacon's Ad- 
vancement of Learning ; 2. Literary : Sidney, Dryden, &c ; 3. Artistic ; 
Buskin, Sir Joshua Eeynolds . . - . . . . 340 — 399 



APPENDIX. 
On English Metres 403—415 

INDEX 417 






LJ 



HISTORY 

OF 

ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

PKELIMINAKY CHAPTEK. 

SECTION I. 

ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. 

Anglo-Saxon Litekatuee forms of itself a special depart- 
ment of study. It is one of those stop-gap products of the 
human mind, working with scanty materials, imperfect 
tools, and under adverse circumstances, which, like stars 
scattered over a dark portion of the sky, stud the dreary 
period that intervenes between the break-up of the 
ancient civilisation and literature, and the rise of those of 
modern times. It is a thing apart, like the Irish or the 
Icelandic literature, and requires to be studied in connec- 
tion with the fossil remains of other extinct cognate lan- 
guages, such as the Old Saxon, the Mcesogothic, and the 
Frisian. It is a chapter in Palaeontology. Yet, since 
the present English tongue is in its essential elements 
derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and since the existence of 
an Anglo-Saxon literature probably stimulated our earliest 
English writers to persist in the use of the vernacular, 
when interest, fashion, and the torrent of literary example 
would have led them to adopt the Norman French, 

B 



2 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

it seems desirable to commence with a brief sketch of 
that literature. 

We know of no Anglo-Saxon composition, produced in 
England, that can be traced back with certainty to the times 
of Paganism. We must not look to the dwellers on the 
muddy Elbe, or the inhabitants of the grassy plains of 
Holstein, for the teeming imagination which characterised 
the Northmen of Iceland and Scandinavia, and which, ages 
before the stirring stimulus of Christianity was applied to 
them, produced the wonderful mythology of the Edda. 
In 596, St. Augustine, sent by Gregory the Great, 
brought the faith to the Anglo-Saxon tribes; and the moral 
ferment which the introduction of this new spiritual ele- 
ment occasioned, acting upon a towardly and capable race, 
full of dormant power and energy of every kind, induced 
also such intellectual exertion as the times permitted, and 
as the partial communication by the missionaries of the 
literature of the ancient world tended to enkindle and to 
sustain. From this period until the Norman Conquest, 
(and in one memorable instance beyond it), the Anglo- 
Saxon mind was ever labouring, so far as intestine war and 
Danish inroad would allow, and executed a very creditable 
amount of work. Its chief successes, it is true, were ob- 
tained through the medium of the Latin, then and long after 
the common language of Europe, and which a generous and 
expansive mind, sick of irrational local usages, and ma- 
terial isolation, would rejoice to employ. 

The Venerable Bede (673-735), in whom the Saxon 
intellect culminated, wrote all his extant works in Latin. 
Alcuin, Eddi Stephanus, and Ethelwerd, did the same. 
But the rough vernacular was employed in popular poetry, 
and in all such prose writings, as had a didactic purpose 
which included the laity within its scope. Such writings 
were naturally for the most part translations, since it was 
evidently safer and wiser to gain an insight into, and 
acquaintance with, the wisdom of antiquity, before essay- 



ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. 3 

ing, under less favourable conditions, to make conquests 
in the realm of original thought. 

I. Poetry. By far the longest, and in some respects 
the most interesting, relic of Anglo-Saxon poetry, is 
the epic poem of Beowulf, in forty-three Cantos, first 
published at Copenhagen, in 1815, by Thorkelin, the 
keeper of the royal archives, and reproduced in this 
country in 1833, an English translation being added 
in 1837, by the eminent Saxon scholar, John Mitchell 
Kemble. The poem was probably composed in Anglen, a 
district of Sleswick, before the great Angle migration to 
Britain in the middle of the fifth century (since it no- 
where contains the slightest allusion to Britain), and was 
brought over, according to a conjecture of Mr. Kemble's, 
about the year 495, by those who accompanied Cerdic and 
Cynewine. The poem is Angle, and the chief heroes men- 
tioned in it are Angles; and yet the word "Angle" 
does not occur through the whole poem. The race to 
which that local designation was finally fixed are de- 
scribed in Beowulf as " Greatas," a name probably derived 
from that of some god or demi-god ; just as the general 
name of " Hellenes " is nowhere met with in Homer, and 
as the Komans in early times called themselves Quirites. 

Two other pieces of what Mr. Kemble calls the " Angle 
Cyclus," are, the Traveller's Song, and the Battle of 
Finnes-burh. Both these, like Beoividf, refer to the times 
of heathenism and to continental transactions. It is not 
known by whom they were written. The first known 
Anglo-Saxon poet is Caedmon, the Northumbrian, who 
flourished about the year 680, when Christianity was 
already the faith of all the seven kingdoms. He was at 
first a lay-brother, afterwards a monk, of St. Hilda's 
monastery at Whitby. " He sang," says Bede, " the 
creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the 
history of Genesis ; and made many verses on the depar- 
ture of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the 



4 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

land of promise, with many other histories from holy- 
writ ; the incarnation, passion, resurrection, of Our Lord, 
and His ascension into Heaven ; the coming of the Holy 
Ghost, and the preaching of the Apostles ; also the terror 
of future judgment, the horror of the pains of hell, and 
the delights of heaven ; besides many more about the 
divine benefits and judgments, by which he endeavoured to 
turn away all men from the love of vice, and excite in 
them the love of, and application to, good actions ; for he 
was a very religious man." 

II. The extant prose writings, though numerous, are, 
with one exception, valuable, not so much for any literary 
merits as for the light which they throw on the labours of 
the historian and the antiquary. There exists in the public 
Record offices an immense body of documents — charters, 
conveyances, declarations, laws, edicts, &c. — many of which 
have been arranged and translated by the labours ol 
Thorpe and Kemble, and have greatly contributed to 
deepen our knowledge of the way of life of our fore- 
fathers. But such documents are of course not literature, 
and therefore need not be here considered. Another large 
portion of the extant works consists of translations, many 
of which proceed from the pen of Alfred himself, who 
has explained his own motives for undertaking the work. 
The views of an " Educational Reformer " in the ninth 
century are worthy of our careful attention. His object 
is, he says, " the translation of useful books into the lan- 
guage which we all understand ; so that all the youth 
of England, but more especially those who are of gentle 
kind and at ease in their circumstances, may be grounded 
in letters, — for they cannot profit in any pursuit until 
they are well able to read English." With these views 
Alfred translated the work of Pope Gregory, Be Cura 
Pastorcdi, the epitome of universal history by Orosius, the 
work of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophic, and the 
Ecclesiastical History of Bede. 



ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. 5 

But by far the most important prose work that has come 
down to us is the Saxon Chronicle, which gives a con- 
nected history of Britain in the form of annals, from the 
Christian era to the year 1154. The oldest MS. in 
existence dates from about the year 891, and is thought, 
with much probability, to have been partly composed, 
partly transcribed from earlier annals, by or under the 
direction of Archbishop Plegmund. From this time the 
Chronicle seems to have been continued under succeeding 
Archbishops of Canterbury to the time of the Conquest, 
when the task was transferred, under what circumstances 
we do not know, to the monks of Peterborough. 

Considered as a whole, the literature of the Anglo- 
Saxons conveys the impression that they were a prosaic 
and practical race, solid but slow thinkers, without much 
imagination or mental fire. What they might have made 
of it, had they been allowed to develop their literature 
uninterruptedly, it is, of course, impossible to say. But 
it seems reasonable to suppose that, for ulterior ends of 
higher good, it was ordered that the Saxon commonwealth 
should not repose in unmolested prosperity. A vein of 
sluggishness, of Boeotian enjoyment, of coarse indul- 
gence, with forgetfulness of the higher aims of life, ran 
through the Saxon character. Their transference from 
the sandy barrens and marshes of Holstein, from the peaty 
plains and stunted forests of Hanover, to the rich soil and 
milder climate of England, tended to develop this weak 
side — this proneness to ease. In their old dwelling-place 
they were at least stimulated by the necessity of con- 
tending with the unfruitfulness of nature and the en- 
croachments of the sea; in comparison with it, England 
must have been a terrestrial paradise — a very land of 
Cockaigne. This tendency to relapse into habits of indo- 
lent ease, which Sir Walter Scott has pourtrayed in the 
character of Athelstan in Ivanhoe, extended to the 
learned class, and to the churchmen no less than the 

B 3 



6 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

laity. The influence of such a man as Bede should have 
been enough to inaugurate a long era of literary energy ; 
yet William of Malmesbury assures us that, with 
the exceptiou of the brief Saxon annals and the bar- 
barous epitome of Ethelwerd, he had not been able to 
discover any historical work composed by an Anglo-Saxon 
upon the affairs of Britain, from the death of Bede to his 
own time. To form the future English character, it was 
necessary that the harder and sterner elements which 
belonged to the Scandinavian races, should be mingled 
and gradually fused with the softer Teutonic, type. The 
Danish invasions and immigrations, which commenced in 
832, and terminated with the establishment of the Danish 
dynasty in 1017, effected this. But in the process, the 
existing literary culture, and nearly all the establishments 
which had been founded to promote it, were swept away. 
In .a country reduced to the dismal condition described by 
Bishop Lupus in a sermon preached to his flock * about 
the year 1012, it was impossible that men's thoughts 
should be efficaciously turned to any subjects save such 
as bore upon their personal security. Canute, indeed, 
after he had restored internal peace and order, showed a 
desire to patronise literary men, and, by rebuilding the 
monasteries, to open asylums for learning. But the glory 
and greatness of his reign gave an impulse rather to the 
Scandinavian than to the Saxon genius. No English poet 
sang of his victories ; that task was left to the scalds, 
whom he brought with him from Denmark. By this time 
large advances had been made towards the amalgamation 
of the races. Writing of the year 1036, Malmesbury f says 
that the citizens of London, "from long intercourse with 
these barbarians " (the Danes), " had almost entirely 
adopted their customs." The Danes adopted with facility 

* Turner, Ang.-Sax. Book vi. ch. xiv. 
f Malmesbury, p. 205 (Bonn's series). 



A1S T GL0-SAX0N PEKIOD. 7 

the Anglo-Saxon tongue, though importing into it many 
Danish words, and probably breaking down to a great 
degree its grammatical structure. The secular laws of 
Canute, addressed to both races equally, are written in 
Anglo-Saxon. All that the cold North could supply, 
the English nationality had now received. The stub- 
born hardihood and perseverance which were illustrated 
in the Drakes, the Cooks, the Stephensons, of later days, 
were, by this large infusion of Danish blood, rooted in the 
English nature. The intellectual activity and literary 
culture of the South, together with the great Eoman 
tradition of political order and vigorous administration, 
were still wanting ; and these were supplied by means of 
the Norman Conquest, 



*/ 

^ 



N^ 



J* 4 



HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



PEELIMINAEY CHAPTER. 
SECTION II. 
THE NORMAN PERIOD. 
1066 — 1350. 

In the age at which we are arrived, two classes of men 
only cultivated literature, the clergy and the minstrels. 
The local centres at which learning was to be obtained were 
of two kinds, the universities and the monasteries. Poetry 
and light literature were comparatively independent of 
such aids; yet the form and development even of these 
could not but be largely dependent on the social and 
moral condition of the classes among whom they were 
circulated. The intellectual achievements, therefore, of 
the clergy, — both Saxon and Norman — the means of self- 
culture which they had at their disposal, and the degree 
of success with which they availed themselves of those 
means, — the different classes of poets, their nationality, the 
traditional or other materials upon which they worked, 
and the furtherance or obstruction which they met with 
in the temper and habits of the time, — all these matters 
must now be successively touched upon. What we have 
named the Norman period embraces more than two cen- 
turies and a half, and includes the long conflict between 
two opposing elements, which terminated, on the whole, 
in favour of what was English, yet so that the national 
language, literature, and prevailing opinions, were all 
deeply coloured by French words and French thoughts. 
For many years after the Conquest the Saxon clergy 



THE NOKMAN PERIOD. 9 

were in no mood or condition to betake themselves to 
the tranquil pursuits of learning. Before that catastrophe, 
religious fervour and rigour of discipline had long been 
on the wane amongst them. We read of much laxity of 
manners, of bishops holding two or more sees at once, of 
priests so ignorant of Latin as to be unable to say mass 
without innumerable blunders. The Conqueror, who, 
with all his cruelty and pride, hated hypocrisy and empty 
profession with all his heart, would not tolerate these 
relaxed ecclesiastics, and by the nomination of Lanfranc 
(a native of Italy, but for many years prior of Bee, in 
Normandy) to the see of Canterbury, inaugurated a 
great reformation in Church matters. Some few of the 
Saxon bishops, as the noble St. Wulstan of Worcester, 
Agelric of Chichester, and one or two others, were left in 
possession of their sees ; the rest had to make way for 
Normans. Nor was this all. Had the unworthy only bee^> 
deposed, and the worthy still allowed to look forward 
to advancement to be obtained through desert, the Saxon 
clergy might still have held together, and with renewed 
strictness of life a revival of learning might have taken 
place among them. But the repeated insurrections of 
the English exasperated the fiery temper of the Con- 
queror ; and after having quelled them, and thus " over- 
turned the power of the laity, he made an ordinance that 
no monk or clergyman of that nation should be suffered 
to aspire to any dignity whatever." * Thus cut off from the 
hope of due recognition for merit the Saxon clergy were 
deprived of one of the chief incentives to study. One may 
be sure that from that time the more ambitious among 
them would make haste to learn French, and would rather 
disguise their nationality than avow it. Yet there was at 
least one monastery, in which a literary work, begun in hap- 
pier times two centuries before, was carried on by Saxon 

* Malmesbury, p. 287. 



10 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

monks and in the Saxon tongue. This is the Saxon 
Chronicle, the later portion of which was composed in 
the monastery of Peterborough. It ends abruptly in the 
first year of the reign of Henry II. (1154), the writer or 
writers being by that time probably unable to resist any 
longer the universal fashion of employing Latin for any 
serious prose work. William of Malmesbury, Henry of 
Huntingdon, Greoffrey of Monmouth, Caradoc, all these, 
and many others, were writing history at this very time, 
and all, as a matter of course, wrote in Latin. The Anglo- 
Saxon, too, being no longer taught in schools, nor spoken 
in the higher circles of society, had lost very much of its 
original harmony and precision of structure; and when 
the annalist found himself using one inflexion for another, 
or dropping inflexions altogether, he may well have 
thought it high time to exchange a tongue which seemed 
crumbling and disintegrating under his hands, for one 
whose forms were fixed and its grammar rational. Little 
did the down-hearted monk anticipate the future glories, 
which, after a crisis of transformation and fusion, would 
surround his rude ancestral tongue. 

Yet literature and learning were not negligently or even 
unsuccessfully prosecuted in England during this which 
we call the Norman period ; and this is a fact which we 
must learn to see in its true light, in order to understand 
aright the rise of English literature in the fourteenth cen- 
tury. Again, the intellectual awakening which spread to 
England in the eleventh and twelfth, and produced valuable 
literary results there in the thirteenth century, cannot be 
understood except in connection with the general European 
movement of mind which ensued upon the consolidation of 
society following the long troubled night of the dark ages. 
Something must therefore be said about the origin of that 
movement, about the course it took, and about the great 
thinkers whose names are for ever associated with it. 

Strange as it may seem, the revival of intellectual 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 11 

activity at the end of the eleventh and in the twelfth cen- 
tury is clearly traceable to the labours and the example of 
Mahometans. Charlemagne, indeed, had made a noble 
effort in the ninth century to systematize education, and to 
make literature and science the permanent denizens of his 
empire, but the wars and confusion of every kind which 
ensued upon the partition of that empire among his sons 
extinguished the still feeble light. A happier lot had 
befallen the powerful and populous kingdoms founded by 
the successors of Mahomet. Indoctrinated with a know- 
ledge of the wonderful fertility and energy of the Greek 
mind, as exemplified especially in Aristotle and Plato, by 
Syrian Nestorians (whose forefathers, fleeing from persecu- 
tion into Persia after the council of Chalcedon, carried with 
them Syriac versions of the chief works of the Greek philo- 
sophers, and founded a school at Grondisapor), Haroun- 
al-Easchid (whose reign was contemporary with that of 
Charlemagne), and Al Mamoun, his successor, saw and as- 
sisted in the commencement of a brilliant period of literary 
activity in the nations of Arabian race, which lasted from 
the ninth to the fourteenth century. Among the Ara- 
bian kingdoms none entered into this movement with more 
earnestness and success than the Moorish kingdoms in 
Spain.* We hear of the Universities of Cordova, Seville, 
and Granada ; and the immense number of Arabic manu- 
scripts on almost every subject contained at this day in the 
library of the Escurial at Madrid attests the eagerness 
with which the Moorish writers sought after knowledge, 
and the universality of their literary tastes. Of their 
poetry, and the effect which it had on that of Christian 
Europe, we shall speak presently. Their proficiency in 
science is evidenced by the remarkable facts which Wil- 
liam of Malmesbury relates of Gerbert, afterwards Pope 
Sylvester II. After having put on the monastic habit at 

* Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe. 



12 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Flory, in France, his thirst for knowledge led him to quit 
his cloister and betake himself to the Moorish community 
in Spain, about the year 1000. At Seville, we are told, 
he " satisfied his desires," becoming an adept, not only in 
astrology and magic, but also in the " lawful sciences " 
of music and astronomy, arithmetic and geometry. " These," 
says Malmesbury, " with great perseverance he revived in 
Graul, where they had for a long time been wholly obsolete." 
Allowing for some exaggeration in this statement, since 
the studies of the Trivium and Quadrivium, among which 
the said lawful sciences were included, had never been 
wholly discontinued in the West since the fall of the 
Eoman empire, we may yet easily conceive that Grerbert 
was the first who popularized in Graul the use of the 
Arabic numerals, without which arithmetic could never 
have made any considerable progress ; and that by import- 
ing the astronomical instruments used by the Moors, 
together with a knowledge of the mechanical principles on 
which they were constructed, he may have placed the 
study of astronomy on a new footing. He became a public 
professor on his return into Gaul, and had many eminent 
persons among his scholars. 

Our next forward step transports us to the monastery 
of Bee, in Normandy. There the abbots Herluin, Lan- 
franc, and St. Anselm, formed a line of great teachers, 
whose lectures were eagerly attended, both by laymen 
and ecclesiastics. Whether the intellectual life of Bee 
was directly influenced by the writings of the great Ara- 
bian thinkers, it is difficult to ascertain. Avicenna, the 
physician and philosopher, died in 1037; therefore, in 
point of time, his comments on the various works of Aris- 
totle might have become known to Lanfranc and Anselm. 
The Organon, however, which was translated by Boe- 
thius and was known to Bede and Alcmn, had never 
ceased to be used in the schools, and the writings of 
St. Anselm do not, we believe, contain any proof that he 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 13 

was acquainted with any other of the works of the 
Stagyrite besides the Aristotelian logic. Stilly it is not 
only possible but probable, that the reports, brought 
by Grerbert and others, of the palmy state of literature 
among the Moors, aud of the zeal both of teachers and 
students in their universities, may have indirectly had a 
stimulating effect on the studies of Bee. 

St. Anselm, abbot of Bee after Lanfranc had been 
called into England, is considered by many the founder 
of the scholastic philosophy. At any rate, he seems to 
have been the first to apply, on a large scale, philosophy 
and its formulae to the doctrines of religion. Yet, as 
he did not originate a method and his writings do not 
form a systematic whole, it would seem that he cannot 
fairly be called the founder of scholasticism. What the 
true scholastic method was, and by whom originated, we 
shall presently see. St. Anselm merely handles, with great 
subtlety and dialectical skill, certain special subjects, such 
as the divine essence, the Trinity, original sin, &c, but 
does not treat of theology as one connected whole. For 
these doctrines he endeavours to find irrefragable intellec- 
tual proof, and to show that they must be as necessarily 
accepted on grounds of reason as on grounds of faith. 
Thus he defines his Proslogium, a treatise on the exist- 
ence of God, to be " faith seeking understanding " (fides 
quserens intellectum), and says that he has framed the 
work "under the character of one endeavouring to lift 
up his mind to the contemplation of the Deity, and seeking 
to understand what he believes" Yet we may be certain 
that St. Anselm himself, like all the saints, derived the 
certainty of his religious convictions through the will 
rather than through the reason; he believed and loved, 
therefore he knew. He, and those who were like-minded 
to him, could safely philosophize upon the doctrines of 
faith, because they already possessed, and firmly grasped, 
the conclusions to which their argumentation was to lead. 



14 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

But what if a thinker were to arise, who should follow 
the same path without the same preservative ? What if a 
being of brilliant genius, of captivating eloquence, of im- 
mense ambition, should undertake to philosophize upon 
religion, without the safeguard of personal sanctity ? 

Such a being was the famous Abelard. This is not the 
place to enlarge upon his story, which in every subsequent 
age has attracted the regards alike of the poet and the phi- 
losopher.* Suffice it to say that he developed a great 
scheme, of what we should now call Rationalism, through 
taking up St. Anselm's argumentative way of proving 
religious doctrine, without his spirit of humility and sub- 
mission to authority. He made faith and reason identical, 
(charitas Dei per fidem sive rationis donum infusa), and 
his scholars demanded from him, he informs us, — evidently 
placing his own sentiments in their mouths, — not words 
but ideas, not bare dogmatic statements, but clear enunci- 
ations of their philosophical import. His lectures, at Paris, 
Melun, and Troyes, were attended by enthusiastic multi- 
tudes. Housed from its long intellectual slumber, the 
Western world, like a man whose limbs have been numbed 
by long inaction, delighted in the vigorous exercise of its 
mental powers for the mere exercise's sake ; or else was 
eager to try their edge upon whatever subject came in their 
way. Hence, on the one hand, the endless logical combats, 
the twistings and turnings of the syllogism in every shape, 
the invention of innumerable sophisms and solutions of 
sophisms ; on the other hand, that undue extension of 
rational methods to objects of faith which we have 
ascribed to Abelard. The danger was great ; already Abe- 
lard's definitions and explanations trembled on the verge 
of heresy, if they did not go beyond it ; but the ground 
tone of his philosophy was still more pregnant with mis- 
chief than any particular expressions. 

* It has been handled by Bayle Cousin, Pope, Cawthorn, &c. 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 15 

At this crisis St. Bernard appeared to check the growing 
evil. He turned back the stream of philosophy, or rather 
he forced it back within its own limits, and forbade it to 
encroach upon a domain which did not belong to it. In 
answering Abelard, he denied that Faith and Eeason were 
identical, or that the doctrines of faith could be discovered 
and proved independently by any argumentative process 
The objects of faith, he said, are given to us from above ; 
they are revealed by Grod exactly because it is impossible 
that they should be discovered by man. " Quid magis contra 
rationem, quam ration e rationem conari transcendere ? " 
A conference between the two, to be held at Soissons, was 
agreed to ; but when the time came for vindicating his 
philosophy, Abelard's heart failed him, and he appealed 
to the Pope. He was leniently treated ; his own consci- 
ence seems to have told him that he had wandered into a 
wrong path ; and he died a penitent in the monastery of 
Cluny(1142). 

We must not suppose, however, that St. Bernard's in- 
fluence as a thinker was mainly of a negative sort. On 
the contrary, this last, and not least eloquent, of the 
Fathers, scarcely ever employed his penetrating and ver- 
satile genius except for some end of practical edification. 
Whether he addresses his own monks at Clairvaux, or 
writes to Pope Eugenius, or kindles the crusading zeal 
of nations, or counsels the Knights of the Temple, or 
composes Latin hymns, the evident aim of his labours is 
always to enlighten, animate, and do good to his neighbour. 
His Latin is admirable; far superior to that of St. An- 
selm ; and the charm of genius unites with the halo of 
saintliness in giving fascination to his eloquent pages. 

Scholasticism, then, made what we may call a false 
start in the school of Bee; its true commencement dates 
a little later, and from Paris. Peter Lombard, the Master 
of the Sentences, hit upon the right method of presenting 
theology under philosophical forms. The data of religion 



16 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

— the substance of revealed truth — he took from tradition; 
and reserved to philosophy the subordinate office of pre- 
senting it in a connected form, of deducing inferences, 
solving difficulties, and harmonising apparent discrepan- 
cies. The Booh of Sentences, which appeared in 1151, is 
a complete body of theology in four books. It com- 
mences with Grod — His being and attributes ; — then 
treats of the Creation, first of angels, then of man ; of the 
Fall, and of original and actual sin. In the third book 
it treats of the remedy of the Fall, the Incarnation ; of 
the theological virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 
In the fourth, of the sacraments, purgatory, the resurrec- 
tion, the last judgment, and the state of the blessed. All 
these doctrines are given in the form of " sentences," ex- 
tracted from the writings of the Fathers. The sentences 
are interspersed with numerous " qusestiones," in which 
the author proposes and attempts to solve any difficul- 
ties that may arise. The conveniences of this plan are 
manifest, and it was at once adopted. Alexander Hales, 
St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas, in the thirteenth century, 
— Duns Scotus, and William of Occam in the fourteenth, 
— whatever may be their differences, agree in treating 
theology as a whole, in seeking its data from authority, 
not from speculation, and in confining themselves to the 
discussion of special questions. Extraneous impulses were 
not wanting. The metaphysical and ethical works of Aris- 
totle became known in the West about this period, chiefly 
through the commentaries of the celebrated Spanish Arab 
Averrhoes (1120-1198), and powerfully stimulated the spe- 
culative genius of the schoolmen. But the admiration 
of the Greek philosopher degenerated into an extrava- 
gance, and his authority was at last considered infallible 
in the schools. It was as if the age, in its horror of losing 
its way, would have a sheet anchor for the mind as well 
as for the soul, and chain the progressive intellect of man 
to the Aristotelian philosophy, because the unchanging 



THE TUBMAN" PERIOD. 17 

interests of the soul demanded fixity and certainty in 
the eternal Grospel. So it ever is that a true and valu- 
able principle, once found, is sure to be strained in the 
application. 

The scholastic method, having thus taken its rise in 
Paris, soon spread to England, and was prosecuted there 
with equal ardour. Some of the greatest of the schoolmen 
were British-born, although they reaped their highest 
honours, and spent most part of their lives, abroad. Alex- 
ander Hales, the Irrefragable, the master of St. Bona- 
venture, was the author of the first important commentary 
on the work of Peter Lombard, and died at Paris, in 1245. 
Duns Scotus, the Subtle doctor, whose birthplace, and 
even the date of whose death, are not certainly known, 
but who was, at any rate, a native of the British Isles, 
after lecturing at Paris with extraordinary success, is said 
to have died at Bologna, in 1308. William of Occam, 
styled the Invincible, passed the greater part of his man- 
hood at the court of the Emperor in Germany, and died 
there in the year 1347. In the great struggle then pro- 
ceeding between imperial and papal claims, Occam sided 
with the Emperors. He was also in his day the head of 
the school of the Nominalists, a section of the schoolmen 
which maintained that our abstract ideas had no realities 
corresponding to them in external existence, but merely 
corresponded in thought to universal terms in language, 
that is to generalized expressions, arrived at by the abstrac- 
tion of differences. 



Historians and Chroniclers. 

The great intellectual movement which we have been 
describing expended its force chiefly on questions of theo- 
logy and philosophy; but it also caused other subjects to 
be treated more intelligently and studied more earnestly. 

c 



18 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

A great number of historians and chroniclers flourished 
in England during this period. All of these were ecclesi- 
astics, most of them monks; and all wrote in the Latin 
language. With the exception of Marianus Scotus and 
Ordericus Vitalis (the latter of whom, though born in Eng- 
land, was of French extraction), they all confined them- 
selves to recording the succession of events in their own 
country. There is no occasion to seek out motives and 
particular inducements impelling the learned of any 
country to historical composition. All men are eager 
to know the past; to hear about the deeds of their fore- 
fathers ; to take their bearings, as it were, from the eleva- 
tion to which history raises them, and from a survey of the 
road along which their nation, or race, or class, have 
come, deduce more trustworthy conclusions as to the 
unknown future which lies before them. If, however, in 
regard to the principal writers, any special reasons must 
be given, it might be mentioned that William of Malmes- 
bury, the best of them all, with his contemporary, Henry 
of Huntingdon, took as their literary model the Venerable 
Bede, the father of modern history in the West; — that 
Geoffrey Vinesauf records with natural complacency the 
chivalrous adventures of King Eichard, in whose train he 
visited Palestine at the time of the third Crusade; and 
that Geoffrey of Monmouth and Caradoc, when clothing 
in a grave historic dress the floating fictions which had 
come down the stream of their popular poetry, may have 
thought to indemnify their Welsh countrymen for recent 
defeat and present inferiority, by telling them of the 
imaginary victories of Arthur over Saxon hosts. 

It may be worth while to collect a few facts concerning 
the best historians in each century of our period. For the 
twelfth century, we will take William of Malmesbury and 
Geoffrey of Monmouth ; for the thirteenth, Geoffrey Vine- 
sauf, Eoger of Wendover, and Matthew Paris; for the 
fourteenth, Nicholas Trivet and Eanulph Higden. 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 19 

1. William of Malmesbury, a monk in the famous 
monastery of that name, founded by the Irish St. Maidulf 
in the seventh century, dedicated his Historia Regum 
Anglice to Bobert, Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of 
Henry L, and the chief patron of literature in those times* 
He congratulates himself on being " the first who, since 
Bede, has arranged a continuous history of the English." 
Being, as he tells us, of Norman descent by one parent^ 
and of Saxon by the other, he writes of the actions of both 
impartially. Certain modern historians have, perhaps, 
made too much of the alienation caused between Saxon 
and Norman by the difference of race. The English 
knew that William of Normandy professed to have as good 
a title to the crown as Harold ; it was chiefly the unjust 
laws, not the persons, of him and his sons, to which they 
had a rooted objection; and it was as the " tyrants of their 
fields," not as Normans, that they detested his followers. 
Malmesbury himself, though half Norman, evidently re- 
gards himself as a thorough Englishman; the history of 
England, from the landing of Hengist and Horsa, is his 
history. Archbishop Lanfranc has a special devotion to 
Dunstan, a Saxon saint; and even the Saxon chronicler 
can freely praise the Norman abbot of Peterborough, if he 
is a man of worth and stands up for the rights of the 
monastery. Malmesbury's history comes down to the year 
1142 ; — he is supposed to have died soon afterwards. 

2. Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of the famous Historia 
Britonum, was a Welshman, as his name implies, and 
was raised in 1152 to the bishopric of St. Asaph. He 
also dedicated his history to Eobert, Earl of Gloucester. 
It professes to be a translation of " a very ancient book 
in the British tongue," brought out of Brittany by Walter, 
Archdeacon of Oxford, in which the actions of all the 
kings of Britain were related, from the Trojan Brutus 
" down to Cadwallader, the son of Cadwallo." Nothing 
further is known of this "very ancient book," and not a 

C 2 



20 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

single page of the history will stand the test of criticism. 
What amount of truth may be mixed up with the mass of 
falsehood it is impossible now to determine. But the book 
must ever possess an abiding literary interest, because, like 
the pretended history of Charlemagne by Archbishop 
Turpin, it furnished a rich mine of materials to the cycle 
of romance writers, of whom we shall have to speak pre- 
sently. It is to GreofTrey's ardent Welsh nationality, and 
disregard of historic precision, that we owe the undying 
story of Arthur and the Knights of the Eound Table. 

3. Geoffrey Vinesauf, who, as we have said, accompanied 
King Eichard to the Crusade, died early in the thirteenth 
century. We shall have to notice him again as a verse- 
maker. 

4. Eoger of Wendover, a monk of St. Albans, Prior of 
Belvoir at the time of his death, in 1237, left behind him 
a chronicle entitled Flores Historiarum, which is con- 
sidered to be divided into three parts. The first, extend- 
ing from the Creation to the year a.d. 447, is entirely 
copied from older authors, and is of no value. The second 
part, which reaches to about the year 1200, is in the main 
copied from other chronicles, but is valuable inasmuch as 
it preserves to us many extracts from lost works. The 
third part, recording the history of Eoger's own times, is 
exceedingly valuable as an original authority. 

5. Matthew Paris, also a monk of St. Albans, wrote, 
under the title of Historia Major, a history of Eng- 
land, commencing with the Norman Conquest, and coming 
down to 1259, the year in which he died. It is a work 
which has always been considered as of great authority, 
though Dr. Lingard has shown that the extreme Angli- 
canism of the writer has led him into many misstatements. 

6, 7. Nicholas Trivet, a Dominican, .and Eanulph Higden, 
a monk of St. Werburgh's, in Chester, composed, the one 
a valuable and well-written series of Annals, extending 
from 1135 to 1307, the other, a work, entitled Polychro- 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 21 

nicon, which comes down to 1357, the English translation 
of which, by Trevisa, was a popular book in the fifteenth 
century. 



Law and Medicine. 

Early in our period the study of laws and jurisprudence 
was revived, and carried on with the eagerness and ex- 
clusiveness which are incidental to revivals. Up to the 
twelfth century the Eoman law had been known either by 
tradition or imperfect copies. But the Pisans, when they 
took Amain, in 1137, are said* to have discovered an 
entire copy of the Pandects of Justinian, — the work in 
which (together with its sister publications, the Codex 
and Institute), the laws of the Eoman empire were by the 
orders of that emperor (about the year 534) collected, clas- 
sified, and explained. Copies of the treasure were soon 
multiplied, and it was studied, among others, by Grratian, a 
monk of Bologna, who conceived the idea of collecting 
and arranging in a similar way what may be called the 
statutory and traditional law of the Christian Church. He 
published, in 1151, under the name of Decretum, a col- 
lection of the canons of councils, the decrees of popes, 
and the maxims of the more ancient Fathers, all which 
branches are included under the general term of Canon 
Law. The fame of Grratian and his work drew students 
to Bologna from all parts of Europe, and noted schools 
of canonists and civilians (for the Eoman or civil was studied 
there pari passu with the canon law) grew up at that 
city. English ecclesiastics resorted there in great numbers, 
and imported the legal knowledge thus gained into the 
ecclesiastical courts of their own country. These courts, 
both on account of the greater simplicity and clearness of 
the law administered in them, and as less open to be tam- 



* See however Hallam's Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 62. 
C 3 



22 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

pered with by royal or aristocratic influences, were much 
resorted to by the laity in preference to the temporal or 
common law courts. They were consequently the object 
of keen ill-will among the lawyers, and of jealousy or 
opposition on the part of the crown. But they seem to 
have had this good effect, if no other; — that their rivalry 
stimulated the lawyers to polish, digest, and present in a 
rational and consistent form, the ancient common law of 
the land, which otherwise could not have stood its ground 
against its twin foreign rivals. Hence arose, near the end 
of the twelfth century, the work of chief justiciary Eanulf 
de Grlanville, On the Laivs and Customs of England, the 
earliest extant treatise upon English law. 

The chief seat of medical science during this period was 
the University of Salerno in Italy. This university was 
in existence before the time of Charlemagne, who founded 
a college in it. It was known as "the city or common- 
wealth of Hippocrates" (ci vitas Hippocratica), and was 
at the zenith of its reputation in the twelfth century; 
early in which the ScJwla Salernitana, a learned poem in 
leonine, or rhyming Latin verses, on the mode of preserv- 
ing health, was composed and published. In 1225 the 
University received from the Emperor, Frederic II., the 
exclusive right of granting medical degrees in his domi- 
nions. Like all other sciences at this period, medicine 
was greatly indebted to the researches of the Arabians, for 
profiting by which, Salerno, from its position on the Me- 
diterranean, was singularly well fitted. 



Beienee. 

Here, too, but for the name of one great Englishman, 
there would be nothing to detain us long. We have seen 
how astronomy, and the subsidiary sciences of arithmetic 
and geometry, were included in the old Quadrivium, the 
course of study which had struggled down from the 



THE KORMAN PERIOD. 23 

Eoman empire. The reason of this lay in the absolute 
necessity of the thing ; for without some degree of astro- 
nomical knowledge the calendar could not be computed, 
and the very church feasts could not be fixed to their 
proper dates. Moreover, therm's fatuus of astrology — 
the delusive belief that human events were influenced by 
the aspects and conjunctions of the heavenly bodies, — led 
on the student, duped for the benefit of his race, to a more 
careful study of the phenomena of the heavens than he 
would otherwise have bestowed. But, besides these long- 
established studies, scientific teaching in other branches 
had been ardently commenced in France by Grerbert, as we 
have seen, early in the eleventh century. But in spite of 
the intrinsic attractiveness of such studies, they languished 
and dwindled away. One cause of this is to be found in 
the suspicion and dislike with which they were popularly 
regarded. Grerbert was believed to have been a magician, 
and to have sold his soul to the evil one. Eoger Bacon was 
popularly regarded in England as a sorcerer down to the 
reign of James I. To trace this feeling to its sources 
would be a very curious inquiry, but it is one foreign to 
our present purpose. The second principal cause of this 
scientific sterility lay in the superior attractiveness of 
scholasticism. It was pleasanter to be disputatious than 
to be thoughtful ; easier to gain a victory in dialectics 
than to solve a problem in mechanics. Moreover, men 
could not distinguish between the applicability of the scho- 
lastic method to a subject, such as theology, in which the 
postulates or first principles were fixed, and its applica- 
bility to subjects of which the postulates either had to be 
discovered, or were liable to progressive change. They 
tried nature, not by an appeal to facts, but by certain me- 
taphysical canons which they supposed to be impregnable. 
Thus Eoger Bacon says that it was the general belief in 
his time that hot water exposed to a low temperature in a 

c 4 



24 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

vessel would freeze sooner than the same quantity of cold 
water, because, say the metaphysicians, " contrarium 
excitatur per contrarium" — contraries reciprocally pro- 
duce each other. "But I have tried it," he says, with 
amusing earnestness, " and it is not the fact, but the 
very reverse. " It thus happened that Koger Bacon, 
one of the most profound and penetrating thinkers that 
ever existed, had no disciples, and left no school behind 
him. This great anticipator of modern science only serves 
for a "gauge whereby to test the depth and strength of the 
mediaeval intellect ; the circumstances of the time did not 
permit the seed which he cast abroad to fructify. 

But few particulars are known of his life. He was born 
at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 1214; received his edu- 
cation at the universities of Oxford and Paris; and, after 
taking the Franciscan habit, commenced a long life of 
unbroken study at Oxford. Among his numerous works 
the most important is the Opus Majus, which he dedi- 
cated and presented in 1267 to Clement IV. This high- 
minded and enlightened Pope he had known when, for- 
merly, as Gruido, Bishop of Sabina, he had visited England 
in the capacity of legate. Clamours and accusations were 
already beginning to be raised against him, for dabbling in 
unlawful arts ; but the Pope promised him his protection, 
and kept his word. But after the death of Clement the 
efforts to silence him were renewed, and at a chapter of 
Franciscans held at Paris, his writings were condemned, 
and he himself was placed in confinement. For ten years, 
dating from 1278, he remained a prisoner, and was li- 
berated at last owing to the intercession of some English 
noblemen with the Pope. He died, according to Anthony 
Wood, in 1292. 

The Opus Majus is an investigation of what he calls 
" the roots of wisdom." The introductory portion discusses 
at great length, and with masterly handling, the relations 
between philosophy and religion. Then he treats of gram- 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 25 

matica, or the study of languages, the first and not the 
least essential of the roots of wisdom, since " from these 
[languages] the sciences of the Latins have been trans- 
lated." By "Latins" he means literary men in general, to 
whom the Latin language was then the medium of thought 
in all subjects except poetry. Nay, the "Latins" threat- 
ened at one time, as we shall see, to engross even the field 
of poetry. The second "root" is mathematical science, 
the key, as he justly says, to all other sciences, " the 
neglect of which now, for these thirty or forty years, 
has vitiated all the studies of the Latins; for whoever 
is ignorant of it cannot know the rest of the sciences." 
Metaphysical disputation, as we have seen, had proved more 
exciting and attractive. To this part of the work is ap- 
pended a long geographical treatise, followed by an account 
of the planets and their influences, which shows that on 
this point Bacon had succumbed to the solemn nonsense of 
the Arabian astrologers. The third root is perspective or 
optics, a study to which Bacon had especially devoted 
himself. The fourth is experimental science, a source 
of knowledge which, he says, " by the common herd of 
students is utterly ignored." The whole work is remark- 
ably characterised by that spirit of system in which later 
English philosophers have been singularly deficient. The 
study of each of these " roots of wisdom" is recommended, 
not for its own sake, not for mere intellectual improvement, 
but on account of the relation which it bears to, and the 
light which it is able to throw on, the supreme science, 
Theology. The reasoning is sometimes singular : the study 
of optics, for instance, is stated to be essential to the right 
understanding of Holy Scripture, because in such passages 
as " Ghiard us, Lord, as the apple of an eye," we cannot 
fully enter into the meaning of the inspired writer, unless 
we have learned from this science how, and with what 
a multiplicity of precautions, the apple of the eye is 
secured from injury. 



26 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Means of Education. 

We have now to inquire what were the principal means 
of education which students had at their command during 
this period. The most important among these were the 
two universities of Oxford and Cambridge. There seems 
good reason to believe that the school which Alfred founded 
was established at Oxford. A more central situation could 
not be found; it was a royal residence, and the scene of 
many a great council of the notables of the kingdom in the 
period intervening between Alfred and the Conquest ; nor 
was it in those times a slight matter, that, standing on 
the Thames, and commanding by the bridge enclosed in 
its fortifications the passage of the river, it was equally 
accessible to those who lived north of Thames, and those 
who lived south. This distinction is clearly recognized 
in the Saxon Chronicle, and it probably gave rise to the 
division of all the students of Oxford into the " nations " 
of North Englishmen and South Englishmen, a division 
apparently as old as the University itself. Once esta- 
blished, we may be certain that the school would continue 
to exist in a precarious way, even in the troubled reigns of 
Alfred's successors. Perhaps it was at Oxford that Ethel- 
werd learnt the exceedingly bad Latin in which, about the 
year 930, he addressed his cousin Matilda, daughter of 
the Emperor Otho, with the view of supplying her with in- 
formation as to the early history of their common country. 
If a well-known passage in Ingulphus be genuine, the 
University was in active operation in the reign of Edward 
the Confessor, since Ingulphus asserts that he studied 
Aristotle and Cicero there. But at the Conquest the dis- 
solution of the University seems to have been nearly com- 
plete. Towards the end of the eleventh century it slowly 
revived, and all during the twelfth century was making 
slow upward progress. 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 27 

The lectures of Abelard (1079-1142), the most active 
thinker of his day, were attended by crowds of English- 
men — John of Salisbury for one, who has left us a curious 
account of them — and some of his hearers must un- 
doubtedly have opened lectures on similar subjects in the 
halls of Oxford. But it is not till the thirteenth century 
that we hear of Oxford as an important educational centre. 
A great stimulus seems to have been applied in 1229 
by the migration of a large body of students from Paris 
to Oxford. The connection between these two universities 
was during all this period most intimate ; — identity of reli- 
gion, common studies, and the use of Latin as a common 
language, produced and maintained it ; — they might almost 
be regarded as two national colleges in an European uni- 
versity. Some of the great men who lectured at Oxford 
have been already noticed, but there is one, whose connec- 
tion with the University in this century was long and im- 
portant, whom we have yet to mention. Eobert Grrossetete, 
Bishop of Lincoln, was long a teacher at Oxford, afterwards 
chancellor, and finally, in his episcopal capacity, ex officio 
head of the University. A man of varied learning, and 
a great and liberal nature, he was the warm friend and 
patron of Eoger Bacon, and is mentioned by him in terms 
of high admiration in the Opus Mctjus. The number of 
students who nocked to Oxford in this and the following 
century far surpassed anything that has been seen in later 
times. " We are told that there were in Oxford in 1209 
three thousand members of the University, in 1231 thirty 
thousand, in 1263 fifteen thousand, in 1350 between three 
and four thousand, and in 1360 six thousand."* All 
national and local antipathies, all political tendencies, all 
existing schools of thought, found numerous and ardent 
representatives at Oxford. We are not therefore surprised 
to read of a succession of furious fights between the uni- 

* Newman's Office and WorTc of Universities, p. 267. 



28 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

versity " nations " on the one hand, and between the 
student-body and the townspeople on the other. The 
monastic orders, though regarded at first by the scholastic 
body with vehement dislike, both in Oxford and Paris, all 
at last established houses in, and furnished teachers to, 
the University; — and it was in the Franciscan monastery 
that Bacon prosecuted his experiments in physical science. 
" Halls " and " Inns," unendowed, but licensed by the 
University, were the primitive arrangement for the accom- 
modation of students; — the first colleges, the main inten- 
tion of which was to facilitate the education of poor 
students, were founded -in the latter half of the thirteenth 
century. Merton and University are the first instances of 
such foundations. 

Cambridge, which has trained so many minds of the 
highest order in more recent times, was comparatively 
uninfluential in the Middle Ages. About the year 1109 
the monks of Croyland, at the instigation apparently 
of their abbot, Groisfred, who had studied at Orleans, 
opened a school in a barn at Cambridge. The scheme 
succeeded ; the number of scholars gradually increased ; 
and a large migration of Oxonians in the year 1209 
seems to have established the risiog university on a 
permanent basis.* 

Monasteries. — Next in importance to the universities as 
seats of education were the monasteries. These arose 
rapidly in every part of England after the Norman Con- 
quest. William himself, though he neglected the univer- 
sities, was a zealous promoter of the monastic institution. 
" Scarcely did his own munificence," says Malmesbury, 
" or that of his nobility, leave any monastery unnoticed. 

* See Huber : English Universities, by E. Newman, a very learned and 
interesting work, deformed however, by some ludicrous blunders, for which 
we cannot say whether the author or the editor is responsible. Thus in a 
quotation in which St. Grermanus is spoken of (vol. i. p. 376), "beatus 
Germanus " is translated " a blessed German ! " 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 29 

. . . Thus in his time the monastic flock increased 
on every side; — monasteries arose, ancient in their form, 
but modern in building." And in a previous passage 
he had said, speaking of the consequences of the Norman 
invasion, " You might see churches rise in every village, 
and monasteries in the towns and cities, built in a style 
unknown before."' This style was of course the round 
arched Norman architecture, of which the specimens in 
England are so numerous and so magnificent. Nearly all 
the monasteries in England, till the introduction of the 
mendicant orders about 1230, belonged to the Benedictine 
order, or some branch of it, and the devotion of the 
Benedictines to learning is well known. Among the houses 
especially distinguished for the learned men whom they 
produced were St, Albans, Malmesbury, Canterbury, and 
Peterborough. Besides the original works composed by 
monks at this period, we are indebted to their systematic 
diligence for the preservation of the ancient authors. 
Every large monastery had its scriptorium, in which 
manuscripts were kept, and the business of transcribing 
was regularly carried on by monks appointed for the 
purpose. 

Paper. — Among literary helps, few have a more prac- 
tically powerful influence on the circulation and stimu- 
lation of ideas than a plentiful supply of writing material. 
Literature was grievously hampered up to nearly the end 
of our period owing to the costliness and scarcity of paper. 
For the first seven centuries after the Christian era, the 
material generally used was the papyrus, imported from I 
Egypt. But after the conquest of Egypt by the Mahome- 
tans, towards the end of the seventh century, this im- 
portation ceased. The place of the papyrus was now ,. 
supplied by parchment, in itself a much better and more 
durable material, but so costly that the practice became 
common of erasing the writing on an old parchment, in 
order to make room for a new work. A manuscript thus 



30 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

treated was called a palimpsest When the characters 
had become much faded through lapse of time, the same 
motive — scarcity of material — led to the practice of 
writing a new work across the old one without resorting to 
erasure. A manuscript so dealt with was called a codex 
rescriptus. But since, in manuscripts of the first kind, 
the process of erasure was often imperfectly performed, 
and in those of the second, the old faded letters can 
often, with a little trouble, be distinguished beneath 
the newer ones, it has happened that valuable copies, 
or fragments, of ancient works have in both these ways 
been recovered.* Paper made from linen or cotton rags 
is an Arabian invention ; and the first paper, nearly 
resembling that which we now use, was made at Mecca in 
the year 706. The knowledge of the art soon passed into 
Spain, and by the Moors was communicated to the Chris- 
tians. But it was not till towards the close of the 
thirteenth century that paper mills were established in 
the Christian states of Spain, whence, in the following 
century, the art passed into Italy, and became generally 
diffused. 

Poetry. 

It may be stated broadly, that from the eleventh to the 
thirteenth century inclusive, the prose literature of Europe 
came from churchmen, the poetry from laymen. But in one 
direction the churchmen made incursions into the domain 
of their rivals without fear of competition or reprisals. 
We refer to the Latin poetry of the Middle Ages. Much 
of this owed its existence to a spirited but hopeless endea- 
vour — one which even Erasmus was disposed to repeat a 
hundred and fifty years later- — to make the Latin the uni- 
versal language of literature. All the existing vernacular 

* The Codex Ephraemi Bescriptus, at Paris, a manuscript of the Greek 
Testament of the highest value, written over with a work of St. Ephrem, is 
a case in point. 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 31 

tongues — though some were more advanced than others — 
were not to be compared in respect of regularity and 
euphony to the Latin; and the poets of the cloister pre- 
ferred to write elegant hexameters and elegiacs after the 
model of their beloved Virgil and Ovid rather than engage 
in a struggle with the harsh dissonances and unmanageable 
particles of their native speech. One concession they did 
make to the fashion of their own age, when, forsaking the 
classic metres, they sought for that measured melody which 
is the essential form of poetry in the Arabic — or possibly 
Celtic — invention of rhyme, by this time (1100) com- 
pletely naturalised in the south of Europe. These Latin 
rhymes were called Leonine verses. The solemn hymns of 
the Church — some of which are unsurpassed even as 
literary compositions — were composed in these rhyming 
measures ; among their authors were St. Anselm, St. 
Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Pope Innocent III, 
The majority of these were written in the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries. No Latin poems of this elevated class 
were composed by English ecclesiastics, but leonine verse 
was largely used in this country as a vehicle for satire 
and humour. There is among the publications of the 
Camden Society a thick volume of such Latin poems, 
of many among which the authorship is ascribed to one 
Walter Mapes or Map, who flourished towards the end of 
the thirteenth century. But the strict Latinists scouted 
the idea of any such concessions to a corrupt modern 
taste ; — when they wrote poetry, they used the metres as 
well as the language of the Latin poets, Thus Geoffrey 
de Vinesauf, who has been already mentioned among the 
historians, wrote a Latin poem entitled De Nova Poetria, 
and addressed to Innocent III., the intention of which was 
to recommend and illustrate the legitimate mode of versifi- 
cation, in opposition to the leonine or barbarous species. 
Actuated by the same prepossessions, Josephus Iscanus, 
a monk of Exeter, who nourished about the year 1210, 



32 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

wrote a long poem in Latin hexameters, entitled De Bello 
Trojano which, to judge of it from the extracts printed 
by Warton, must have possessed great literary merit. 
Though now forgotten, it enjoyed so great a popularity 
even as late as the fifteenth century, as to be thumbed by 
school-boys in every grammar-school, and ranked by 
teachers side by side with the genuine poets of Eome. 

But this fanatical preference of a dead language, even as 
the medium for poetry, could not in the nature of things 
hold its ground. In poetry, the originality of the thought, 
the vigour and aptness of the expression, are what consti- 
tutes the charm ; we read it, not that we may learn about 
things, but that we may come in contact with thoughts. 
But no one can think with perfect freedom except in 
his native tongue, nor express himself with remarkable 
degrees of force and fire, unless upon subjects coming 
closely home to his feelings. To an ecclesiastic, whose 
home is the church, the church's language may perhaps be 
considered in one sense as his natural speech, so long as 
his thoughts are busied with those objects on which her 
attention and affections are uninterruptedly concentred. 
Thus no poem more startlingly real, more tender, more 
awe-inspiring, exists in any language than the wonderful 
sequence "Dies Irse, dies ilia." But for the themes of 
love, or war, or gaiety, with which poetry is principally 
conversant, the Latin could not be so apt a medium as the 
roughest of the vernacular tongues, since to the ear accus- 
tomed to the vivid and expressive utterances on these 
subjects to which the converse of daily life of necessity 
gives rise, its phrases must always have seemed cold, 
flat, and indirect. Hence as the Trouveres and their 
imitators rise and multiply, the school of Latin poetry 
dwindles away, and after the middle of the thirteenth 
century nearly disappears. 

The poetry which, strong in its truth to nature, sup- 
planted its more polished rival, was the growth of France ; 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 33 

and to trace its origin, and analyse its many developments, 
is no part of the task of the historian of English litera- 
ture. It is necessary, however, that the English student 
should have some general knowledge of the matter ; other- 
wise he would very imperfectly understand the course of 
English poetry in this and in the following period. 

The French poetry of the age was divided into two 
schools, the Norman and the Provencal. The poets of the 
one were called Trouveres, those of the other, Trouba- 
dours. The language of the one was the Langue d'oil, 
that of the other the Langue d'oc* The poetry of the 
Trouveres was mostly epic in its character; that of the 
Troubadours mostly lyric. Each most probably arose 
independently of the other, although that of the Trouba- 
dours sprang the soonest into full maturity, as it was also 
the first to decline and pass away. The origin of the 
Provencal literature is to be sought in the amicable inter- 
course which subsisted during the ninth and tenth centuries 
between the Moorish and the Christian states of Spain, 
resulting for the latter in their acquaintance with, and 
imitation of, the Arabic poetry and prose fiction. The 
poems of those children of the burning South were distin- 
guished by an almost idolatrous exaltation of the female 
sex, and an inexhaustible inventiveness in depicting every 
phase, and imagining every condition, of the passion of 
love. The Catalan minstrels took up the strain in their 
own language, which was a variety of the langue cVoc; 
and from Catalonia, upon its being united to a portion 
of Provence, in 1092, under Eaymond Berenger, the newly 
kindled flame of romantic sentiment and idealizing pas- 
sion passed into the south of France, and gave birth to 
the poetry of the Troubadours. Of this poetry, love is the 
chief, though not the sole, inspiration. It neglects the 

* So called from the different words signifying " yes " in the two lan- 
guages. 

D 



34 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

realities of life ; it is impatient of historical themes which 
require learning and toil ; it is essentially fugitive — 
subjective — conventional. In a certain sense it may be 
called abstract poetry, since throughout a large portion 
of it the reader is removed from the world of concrete 
existences, and placed in an imaginary realm, peopled 
by beings who own no laws but the conventional de- 
crees of a Court of Love, and know no higher ambition 
than that of being a successful suitor. Such a style evi- 
dently contains within itself the germ of a certain dis- 
solution, unless it admit of change and enrichment from 
without. But external circumstances accelerated the fall 
of the literature of the Troubadours ; the bloody wars 
of which the south of France was the theatre during the 
early part of the thirteenth century, silenced the minstrel's 
lute, and substituted the wail of the mourner for the 
song of the lover. Attempts were subsequently made, 
down even to the fifteenth century, to revive the ancient 
style ; but they failed to impart to it more than a transient 
and factitious vitality. But in its flourishing time, the 
Gray Science was eagerly cultivated in every part of Western 
Europe, and kings were proud to rank themselves among 
its members. Our own Richard Cceur-de-Lion not only 
entertained at his court some of the most celebrated 
Troubadours of Provence, but himself composed several 
sirventes which are still extant. A tenson, the joint 
composition of himself and his favourite minstrel Blondel, 
is said, according to the well-known story in Matthew 
Paris, to have been the means of BlondePs discovering 
the place of the king's confinement in Grermany. 

Almost the whole of the poetry of the Troubadours falls 
under two heads; the tenson and the sirvente* The 
former was a kind of literary duel, or dialogue contro- 

* Tenson is connected by Raynouard with "contention." Ducange ex- 
plains sirventes as " poemata in quibus servientium, seu militum, facta et 
servitia referuntur." 



THE SORMAX PEEIOD. 35 

versial, between two rival Troubadours, on some knotty 
point of amatory ethics, and often took place before, and 
was decided by, a Court of Love. To these courts we 
shall again have occasion to refer when we come to speak 
of Chaucer. The latter was employed on themes of war 
or politics or satire. Among the most eminent composers 
of sirventes were Bertrand de Born, the gifted knight of 
Perigord, whose insidious suggestions kept alive for years 
the feud which divided our Henry II. and his sons, — 
Peyrols, a knight of Auvergne, — and Sordello of Mantua. 
Bertrand and Sordello both figure in the great poem of 
Dante, the one in the Inferno, the other in the Purgatorio. 
Poems by these, and many other Troubadours, may be 
found in the great work of M. Raynouard on the Pro- 
vencal poetry. 

But the poetry of the Trouveres had a far mor r Important 
and lasting influence over our early English literature than 
that of the Troubadours. We may arrange it under four 
heads : — Romances, Fabliaux, Satires, and Historical 
Poetry. To the first head belong, besides a great number 
of poems on separate subjects, four great epic cycles 
of romance ; the first relating to Charlemagne, the second 
to Arthur and the Round Table, the third to the crusades 
for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and the fourth to 
the ancient world and its heroes, especially Alexander the 
Great. Of the romances relating to Charlemagne, the 
oldest is the Chanson de Roland, a narrative of the last 
battle and death of the brave Roland on the field of 
Roncesvalles. This poem, although in the shape in which 
we now have it, it was not written down earlier than the 
twelfth century, in its primitive form is believed to date 
from the reign of Louis le Debonnaire.* The metre is 
the ten-syllable rhyming couplet. Among the more cele- 
brated pieces in this cycle are the Four Sons of Aymon, 
Roland and Ferrabras, and Ogier le Danois. A direct 

* Deniogeot, Hist, de la Lit. Frangaise. 
D 2 



36 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

proof of the high antiquity of some portions at least 
of the Charlemagne romance is found in the lines in 
which Eichard Wace (who wrote about 1155) describes 
the proceedings of the Norman minstrel Taillefer, just 
before the battle of Hastings : — 

" Taillefer, qui moult bien chantait, 
Sur un cheval qui tot allait, 
Devant le due allait chantant 
De Charlemagne et de Holland, 
Et d' Olivier et des vassaux 
Qui moururent a Roncevaux." 

The next cycle, that of Arthur, was unquestionably 
founded upon the national and patriotic songs of Wales 
and Brittany. At the courts of the petty kingdoms of 
Wales, which for centuries, while the Saxons were fighting 
with each other or struggling against the Danes, seem to 
have enjoyed comparative prosperity and peace, the Welsh 
bards, feeding their imagination on the memory of the 
gallant stand made by their patriot prince against the 
Teutonic hordes, gradually wove a beautiful tissue of 
romantic poetry, of which the central figure was Arthur. 
The songs in which his exploits were celebrated naturally 
made their way among their self-exiled brethren in Brit- 
tany, and, perhaps, were by them added to and embel- 
lished. From Brittany they easily passed into the rest 
of France, and by the congenial imaginations of the 
Norman poets were eagerly welcomed. This is the direct 
influence of Brittany upon the formation of the Arthur 
cycle ; and it is exemplified in the romance of Iwain or 
Owen, composed in French by Chretien of Troyes, about 
the year 1160, after the Breton original by Jehann Vaour. 
There was also an indirect or reflex influence, commu- 
nicated through the British history of Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth, which, as we have seen, is stated by its author to 
have been translated from a work in the Breton language. 
Greoffrey reproduced this work in Latin, adding probably 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 37 

a good deal from original Welsh sources, and the result 
was the Historia Britonum. This Latin history be- 
came exceedingly popular, and was resorted to by the 
Trouveres as a secondary mine of information respecting 
Arthur and the Eound Table. The earliest form of these 
French romances was unquestionably metrical, but it has 
happened that the original poems have in some instances 
been lost, so that the oldest existing versions of portions of 
the cycle are in French prose. The authors of these' prose 
versions — as Luke Grast, Walter Mapes, and Eobert Broom 
— appear to have been natives of England. 

Of the third cycle, that relating to the crusades, the most 
important piece is the famous romance of Eichard Cceur- 
de-Lion. 

The leading poem of the fourth cycle is the Alexandreis, 
the joint work of Lambert li Cors and Alexander of Paris, 
published in 1184. The extraordinary success of this 
poem caused the metre in which it was composed (the 
twelve-syllable rhyming couplet) to be known thenceforth 
by the name of Alexandrine, 

The Fabliau, or Metrical Tale, aimed, not at singing 
the actions of heroes, but at describing, in an amusing, 
striking way, the course of real life. It was to the 
chivalrous romance what comedy is to tragedy — comedy, 
that is to say, like that of Menander, not like that of 
Aristophanes ; it is not political, and does not attack in- 
dividuals, but paints society and phases of character. With 
a frequent touch of satire, or flavour of cynicism, the Fa- 
bliau is upon the whole an account of the every-day life 
and manners of the time, of which it conveys no very 
pleasing or edifying impression. Many fabliaux were 
drawn from eastern sources ; e.g., the famous Indian tale 
of the Seven Yiise Masters, which has been rendered or 
imitated in so many different languages. 

The glaring inconsistencies which this world presents 
between promise and performance — between theory and 

D 3 



38 HISTORY OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

practice — give rise in every age to satire. Every village 
has its satirist, who with greater or less skill exposes the 
hypocrite, and ridicules the dupe. It is quite a secondary 
question whether the satire current in any particular age 
finds or misses literary expression. In the Middle Ages the 
great literary movement of France, which we are now con- 
sidering, could not fail to extend to satire also. And 
as deficient practice and performance are nowhere so 
offensive as when they accompany the grandest theories 
and the most uncompromising professions, it was natural 
that the vices of ministers of the Church, that one powerful 
European institution, the very grandeur of which made it 
a more obvious mark, should be the principal theme of 
mediaeval satirists. The continuation of the Roman de la 
Rose, by Jean de Meun, composed about the end, and the 
famous tale of Reynard the Fox, composed about the 
middle, of the thirteenth century, are full of satirical 
attacks upon men in high places and established insti- 
tutions, in all which the clergy come in for the principal 
share of invective. 

Historical Poetry. — The period which produced so many 
Latin chronicles for circulation among the clergy, gave 
birth also to French chronicles in verse for the enter- 
tainment of the laity. In verse, — because few laymen 
could read, and a history in rhyme was easier and more 
agreeable to remember, both for the reciter and for the 
hearer. We do not hear of prose chronicles in French, still 
less in English, until the next period, by which time a 
reading and cultivated lay audience had been formed. 
The chief name of note among these French metrical chro- 
niclers is that of Maitre Wace, a learned clerk, born in 
Jersey, near the end of the eleventh century, and educated 
in Normandy. His first history, the Brut d'Angleterre 
(Chronicle of England), is in the main a translation of 
G-eoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Britonum before men- 
tioned, and ends with the year 680, His second work. 



THE NORMAN PERIOD. 39 

the Roman de Rou (Kollo), is a history of the Dukes of 
Normandy, reaching down to 1170, the sixteenth year 
of Henry II. Part of this latter work is in the Alex- 
andrine measure ; the remaining portion, and all the Brut 
cVAngleterre are in the eight-syllable romance metre. 
Another chronicler, Benoit, also composed, at the desire of 
Henry II., a history of the Dukes of Normandy, which 
appeared some years after that of Wace. Wace died about 
the year 1175. 

The English poetry of the period bears witness, as we 
have said, in almost every line, to the powerful foreign 
influences amid which it grew up, and to which it owed 
the chief part of its inspiration. It may be arranged, there- 
fore, under the same four heads as the French poetry ; 
to these, however, we will add two others, religious poems, 
and occasional poems; since it is in these compositions that 
we first find a marked originality, a promise of an inde- 
pendent growth to come. 

English versions or imitations of the popular French 
romances began to be multiplied towards the end of the 
thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries. For 
a particular account of these English romances, the reader 
may consult the excellent work of Ellis.* Besides the 
two heroic subjects, Charlemagne and Arthur, (the heroes 
of classical antiquity seem to have been less popular with 
the English versifiers,) the crusades, particularly the one 
in which King Eichard was engaged, and many mis- 
cellaneous topics, are handled by these writers. Yet 
even Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hamptoun, and Richard 
Cceur-de-Lion, though the names have such a local and 
national sound, were founded upon French originals, the 
authors of which, indeed, were probably Englishmen, but 
derived from France their literary culture. 

Scarcely any English versions of Fabliaux are known to 
exist of earlier date than 1350. The raillery and more 

* Specimens of Early English Eomances. 
D 4 



40 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

refined touches which belong to this class of compositions 
were not suited to the rude intelligences of the English- 
speaking population in the Norman period, and would have 
been utterly thrown away upon them. The only instance 
of a fabliau given by Ellis is the version of the Indian 
story before mentioned of the Seven Wise Masters, sup- 
posed to have been made from the French about the year 
1330. 

Under the head of satire, there exists a curious poem, 
entitled the Land of Cokaygne, the date of which is not 
certainly known, though Warton is undoubtedly wrong in 
placing it as early as the twelfth century. It is a biting 
satire on the monastic orders, and bears the stamp of the 
flippant age of Boccaccio rather than that of the grave 
and earnest century of St. Bernard. Nothing is known 
about the author, nor is the French original, from which it 
was evidently taken, in existence. 

Of the metrical chroniclers, who, in imitation of Wace 
and his fellow-labourers, related the history of England 
in Eoglish verse for the entertainment of the laity, the 
earliest in date is Layamon, a monk of Ernley-on-Severn, 
in Gloucestershire, who about the close of the twelfth 
century produced an amplified imitation of Wace's Brut 
d'Angleterre. This curious work, the earliest existing poem 
of considerable magnitude in the English language, ex- 
tends to about 14,000 long lines of four accents. To produce 
the effect of metre, Layamon employs both alliteration 
and rhyme, both of the rudest description ; sometimes, 
too, he seems unable to achieve either the one or the other. 
The writer seems to have been balancing between the 
example of his French prototype, who uses rhyme, and 
the attractions of the old native Saxon poets, who 
employed nothing but alliteration. This may be seen 
even in the following short extract, borrowed from Ellis's 
specimens : — 



THE NORMAJS" PERIOD. 41 

" Tha the king wes i-seten 
Mid his mormen to his mete 
To than kinge com tha biscop, 
Seind Dubrig, the was swa god ; 
And nom of his hafde 
His kinc-helm hsehne 
(For than mucle golde 
The king hine beren n'alde) 
And dude enne lasse crune 
On thas kinge's hafde. 
And seoth-then he gon do 
Athere quene alswo." 

The language of Layamon is far less altered from the 
Saxon than that of the concluding portion of the Saxon 
Chronicle, although its date is some forty years later. The 
reason of this clearly is, that he lived in a remote country 
district, being priest of Areley-on-Severn,* a village in the 
north-western corner of Worcestershire, and held scarcely 
any intercourse with men of Norman lineage. Not more 
than fifty non-Saxon words have been detected in the 
entire work. 

An interval of nearly a hundred years separates Layamon 
from the next of the rhyming chroniclers, Kobert of Glou- 
cester. Kobert, as he follows Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
travels partly over the same ground as Layamon, whose 
prototype, Wace, also followed Geoffrey. But in everything 
else but their subject, the difference between the two chro- 
niclers is enormous. Divest Eobert of his strange ortho- 
graphy, and he becomes a readable, intelligible English 
writer. A monk of a great monastery in an important 
frontier city, his style is that of a man who is fully an 
courant with the civilisation, and familiar with the litera- 
ture of his age, while Layamon's bespeaks the simple 
parish priest, moving among a rustic population, whose 
barbarous dialect he with a meritorious audacity adapts 
as best he can to literary purposes. Eobert's chronicle, 
which is in long fourteen-syllable lines, is continued to the 

* So the village of Ernley is now called, 



42 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

year 1272. To Eobert of Gloucester succeeds Eobert 
Manning, a monk of the GKlbertine monastery of Brunne, 
or Bourn, in South Lincolnshire. Manning composed a 
rhyming chronicle in two parts : the first, a translation of 
the everlasting Brut by Wace, of which the reader has 
already heard so much; the second, a version of Peter 
Langtoft's French metrical chronicle, ending with the death 
of Edward I. in 1307. The opening of the second part 
explains so simply and clearly the motives which induced 
the rhyming chroniclers to employ themselves on a task 
which to our modern notions involves a strange misappli- 
cation of poetical power, that we think it right to insert it 
here : — 

" Lordynges that be now here, 
If ye mile listene and lere 
All the story of Inglande, 
Als Robert ]\Iannyng wryten it fand, 
And on Inglysch has it schewed 
Not for the lered but for the lewed ; 
For tho that on this lond wonn 
That the Latin ne Frankys conn, 
For to hauf solace and gamen 
In felauschip when tha sitt samen ; 
And it is wisdom for to wytten 
The state of the land, and hef it wryten, 
"What manere of folk first it wan, 
And of what kynde it first began ; 
And glide it is for many thynges 
For to here the dedis of kynges, 
Whilk were foles, and whilk were wyse, 
And whilk of tham couth most quantyse ; 
And whilk did wrong, and whilk ryght, 
And whilk mayntened pes and fight. 
Of thare dedes sail be mi sawe, 
In what tyme, and of what law, 
I sholl yow [tell], from gre to gre, 
Sen the tyme of Sir Noe." 

Manning's language, though his chronicle is said to 
have been not finished till the year 1338, is scarcely, if at 
all, more polished than that of Eobert of Gloucester. 



THE NORMAL PERIOD. 43 

Of the numerous religious poems in English which 
remain to us from this period, some are metrical versions 
of psalms; some (as Bishop Grossetete's Manuel cles 
Peches, translated by Eobert Manning), didactic poems 
on some point of Christian doctrine or morality ; some, 
Lives of Saints ; some, lastly, short poems on devotional 
topics, such as the Crucifixion, and the Blessed Virgin- 
under the Rood. In each of these classes poems are ex- 
tant, the antiquated style and language of which require 
us to place them as early as the twelfth or the beginning of 
the thirteenth century. In one or two poems of the last 
class, passages of which are given by Warton, there shines 
out from under the terrible barbarism of the language, 
a beautiful pathos, and a tender purity of devotion ; so 
that it would be a good work if some competent person 
were so far to modernize them as to make them accessible 
to modern readers. 

The religious poems were probably written by eccle- 
siastics ; but the occasioned and miscellaneous poems of 
the period are evidently for the most part the productions 
of laymen. Some of these will come under review in the 
critical section of this volume ; but there is one which the 
certainty of its date, and the remarkable character of its 
contents, render so important in an historical point of view, 
that it must be noticed here. This is a poem (given by 
Warton in extenso) composed after the battle of Lewes in 
1264, by an adherent of Simon de Montfort. The num- 
ber of French words which it contains, and the vigour and 
ease with which they are handled, unite to prove that the 
new English language was well on in the process of for- 
mation, conditioned always by the necessity, which this 
writer frankly accepts, of incorporating a vast number 
of French words, expressive of the ideas which England 
owed to the Norman invasion. Again, the broad hearty 
satire, the strong anti-royalist, or rather anti-foreigner, 
prejudices of the writer, the energy of resolution which 



44 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the lines convey, point unmistakably to the rise, which 
indeed must any way be dated from this reign, of a dis- 
tinct English nationality, uniting and reconciling the 
Norman and Saxon elements. A portion of this poem is 
subjoined — 

" Sitteth alle stille, and herkneth to me ; 
The kyng of Alemaigne, bi mi leaute, 
Thritti thousent pound askede he, 
Eor te make the pees in the countre, 

Ant so he dude more. 
Richard, thah thou be ever trichard*, 
Tricthen shalt thou never more. 
* -* * * 

" The kyng of Alemaigne wendef do ful wel, 
He saisede the mulnej for a castel, 
With hare § sharpe swerdes he grounde the stel, 
He wende that the sayles were mangonel ||, 
To helpe Wyndesore. 
Richard, &c. 

* # * * 

" Sire Simond de Mountfort hath suorebi ys chyn, 
Hevede ^[ he now here the erl of "Waryn, 
Shuld he never more come to is yn **, 
Ne with sheld, ne with spere, ne with other gynff, 
To helpe of Wyndesore. 
Richard," &c. 

* Treacherous, f Weened. J Mill. § Their. || A military engine. 
«j[ Had. * * His inn. f f Engine. 



EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 45 



CHAPTER I. 
EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 



1350 — 1450. 

Hitherto such English writers as we have met with since 
the Conquest have generally appeared in the humble guise 
of translators or imitators. In the period before us we at 
last meet with original invention applied on a large scale : 
this, therefore, is the point at which English literature 
takes its true commencement. 

The Latin and French compositions, which engaged so 
much of our attention in the previous period, may in this 
be disposed of in a few words. That Englishmen still con- 
tinued to write French poetry, we have the proof in many 
unprinted poems by Grower, and might also infer from 
a passage, often quoted, in the prologue to Chaucer's 
Testament of Love. But few such pieces are of suffi- 
cient merit to bear printing. In French prose scarcely 
anything can be mentioned besides the despatches, treaties, 
&c, contained in Rymer's Fcedera and similar compi- 
lations, and the original draft of Sir John Mandevile's 
Travels in the Holy Land. Froissart's famous Chronicle 
may, indeed, almost be considered as belonging to us, 
since it treats principally of English feats of arms, and 
its author held a post in the court of Edward III. Of 
Latin poetry we have hardly a single specimen. In Latin 
prose, we have a version, made by himself, of Mandevile's 
Travels, and the chroniclers, Robert de Avesbury, William 
Knyghton, Ealph Higden, and John Fordun. In theology 
and philosophy, original speculation appeared no more; 
comments on the Liber Sententiarum and the Summa 
of St. Thomas, besides a number of theological tracts, 
chiefly devotional, were all that this period produced. 



46 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The obvious cause of the decline of French and Latin 
composition in England was the growing prevalence, social 
and literary, of the native speech. To this many circum- 
stances contributed. The gradual consolidation of na- 
tionalities, which had long been making steady progress 
throughout Europe, had been constantly drawing the Nor- 
man barons and the English commonalty closer together, 
and separating both from the rival nationality of France. 
Nor had the nation at any time lost, so to speak, its personal 
identity : it was England for which the Norman Eichard 
fought at Acre ; and even William of Malmesbury, writing 
not a hundred years after the Conquest, speaks of that 
event rather as a change of dynasty occurring in English 
history, than as of a complete social revolution. The 
influence of the Church must have pressed powerfully in 
the same direction. Though the Conqueror filled nearly 
all the sees with Normans, it was not long before native 
Englishmen, through that noble respect for and recog- 
nition of human equals ^ which were maintained in the 
midst of feudalism by tnj ^hurch of the Middle Ages, 
obtained a fair proportion of them. The political and 
official power of bishops in those days was great, and the 
native tongue of an English Archbishop of Canterbury 
could not, even by the proud -^rman barons, his compeers 
in Parliament, be treated v 1 it disrespect. Again, since 
1340, England and France b I been constantly at war: 
in this war the English-speaking archers, not the French- 
speaking barons, had won the chief laurels; and the 
tongue of a humbled beaten enemy was likely to be less 
attractive to the mass of Englishmen than ever. The 
well-known law of Edward III., passed in 1362, directing 
the English language to be used thenceforward in judicial 
pleadings, was merely an effect of the slow but resistless 
operation of these and other cognate causes. Again, it 
must not be lost sight of, that a sort of tacit compromise 
passed between the English and French-speaking por- 



EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 47 

tions of the population: the former were to retain the 
entire grammar — so much, at least, as was left of it — 
of the native speech; all the conjunctions, prepositions, 
and pronouns, — the osseous structure, so to speak, of 
the language, — were to be English ; while, in return, the 
Normans were to be at liberty to import French nouns, 
adjectives, and verbs at discretion, without troubling 
themselves to hunt for the corresponding terms in the 
old literary Anglo-Saxon. Finally, this English language, 
so re-cast, became in the fourteenth century the chosen 
instrument of thought and expression for a great poet; 
and, after Chaucer, no Englishman could feel ashamed of 
his native tongue, nor doubt of its boundless capabilities. 

Of the parentage of Geoffrey Chaucer nothing is known, 
but we have his own word for it * that London was the 
place of his birth. The year seems to have been 1328 f, 
that in which Edward III. married Philippa of Hainault. 
Leland, writing in the time of Henry VIII., says that he 
wsL$"nobili loco natus" but b?. gives no authority for 
the statement. Godwin's pv~ r. osition, founded upon a 
number of minute allusions scattered through his works, 
that his father was a merchant, or burgess of London, 
seems to be much more probable. 

That he was educated f a university is certain, but 
whether at Oxford or Cam " ige is not so clear. There is 
a passage in the Court of j >ve, line 912, — 

" Philogenet I called am ferre and nere, 
Of Cambridge clerk ;" 

which seems to tell in favour of Cambridge. On the other 
hand, it is known that his most intimate friends and dis- 
ciples, Gower, Strode, and Occleve, were Oxford men. In 

* In the Testament of Love, 

f This, however, is merely a conjecture of Speght (writing in 1597) coup- 
ling the date — 1400 — on the tombstone withLeland's assertion that he lived 
to the "period of grey hairs." 



48 HISTOKY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

1359 he served in the great army of invasion which 
Edward III. led over into France. In the course of this 
bootless expedition Chaucer was taken prisoner, but seems 
to have been released at the peace of Bretigny, in 1360. 
His marriage with Philippa Eouet is thought to have 
taken place in the same year. This lady was a native 
of Hainault, and maid of honour to Queen Philippa. 
Her sister Catherine was the third wife of John of Gaunt, 
Duke of Lancaster. These circumstances readily explain 
Chaucer's long and close connection with the court, com- 
mencing with the year 1367, when the king granted him a 
pension of twenty marks for life, under the designation of 
" dilectus valettus noster." His prudence and practical 
wisdom seem to have been as conspicuous as his more 
brilliant gifts, since he was at various times employed by 
the king on important diplomatic missions. One of these 
took him to Italy in 1373, in which year he is thought 
with the highest probability to have become acquainted 
with Petrarch, who was then living at Arqua, near Padua. 
What other sense can be attached to the famous passage in 
the prologue to the Clerk's Tale ? — 

" I -nil you telle a tale, which that I 
Lemed at Padowe of a worthy clerk, 
As proved by his wordes and his werk ; 
He is now dead, and nayled in his chest, 
Now God give his soule wel good rest ! 
Fraunces Petrark, the laureat poete, 
Highte this clerk, whose rhetorike swete 
Enlumynd all Ytail of poetrie, 
As Linian did of philosophic" 

Petrarch died in ,1374, so that the acquaintance could 
not have been formed at the time of Chaucer's second 
visit to Italy, in 1378. 

In 1374 Chaucer was appointed to the lucrative office of 
Comptroller of the Customs in the port of London. About 
the time of the king's death, in 1377, he was employed on 



EARLY ENGLISH PEBIOD. 49 

more than one secret and delicate mission, of one of which 
the object was to negotiate the marriage of Eichard II. 
with a French princess. The new king granted him a 
second pension of the same amount as the first. In 1386 
he sat as a burgess for the county of Kent in the par- 
liament which met at Westminster. John of Graunt, his 
friend and patron, was at this time absent upon an expedi- 
tion to Portugal ; and the Duke of Gloucester, another 
of the king's uncles, a man of cruel and violent cha- 
racter, succeeded in this parliament in driving the king's 
friends out of office, and engrossing all political power 
in the hands of himself and his party. In November 
of the same year a commission was appointed, through 
the Duke's influence, armed with general and highly 
inquisitorial powers extending over the royal household 
and all the public departments. In December we find that 
Chaucer was dismissed from his office as comptroller. It 
is evident that these two circumstances stand to each other 
in the relation of cause and effect. The commission may 
perhaps have seized upon the pretext of some official irre- 
gularities (for Chaucer received the appointment under 
stringent conditions), but it is clear that he suffered in 
common with the rest of the king's friends and favour- 
ites, not on account of his " connection with the Duke of 
Lancaster," but simply as a courtier.* This view of the 
matter is confirmed by the fact that in 1389, in which year 
Eichard broke loose from his uncle's tutelage and dismissed 
him and his satellites, we find that Chaucer was appointed 
to the office of Clerk of the King's Works. In the interval 
he had been reduced to such distress as to be compelled to 
dispose of his pensions. From some unascertained cause 
he ceased to hold this new situation some time in the year 
1391. Three years afterwards the king conferred on him a 
fresh pension of twenty pounds a year for life, to which 

* Mr. Bell, in the Life prefixed to his excellent edition of Chaucer, 
seems to have misapprehended this transaction. 

E 



50 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Henry IV. in the first year of his reign (1399) added 
a pension of forty marks. Except these dry facts, we have 
absolutely no certain knowledge respecting the last ten 
years of Chaucer's life; but it is satisfactory to reflect 
that the last days of the father of English poetry were 
at least spent in external comfort and free from the 
troubles of poverty. 

Thus far no mention has been made of Chaucer's writings, 
the composition of most of which there is no means of 
accurately assigning to this or that year of his life. 
These must now be considered, but historically only, 
not critically. All that will be attempted here is, after 
enumerating his principal works, to determine so far as 
possible their approximate dates, to describe the various 
literary materials which he had at his disposal, and to 
show the different degrees in which the use of those 
materials, and his own genius, as developed through the 
circumstances which surrounded him, influenced his 
work. 

For reasons presently to be mentioned, we have arranged 
the poet's chief works in the following order : — 

The Assembly of Foules 

The Flower and the Leaf > First period. 

The Court of Love 

Chaucer's Dreme (about 1360) 

Boke of the Duchesse (about 1370) 

Romaunce of the Rose f Second P erio(L ' 

House of Fame 

j 

Troylus and Creseide 

The Knight's Tale (and perhaps others > Third period, 
of the Canterbury Tales) 

Legende of Good Women ^ 

The Prologue, and many of the Can- 
terbury Tales > Fourth period. 
The Astrolabie (1391) 
The Testament of Love ^ 

The works of the first period are by general consent 



EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 51 

assigned to Chaucer's youth. It is usual to reckon the 
Court of Love as the earliest of all, and to assign it to 
his eighteenth year, because the seventh stanza begins, — 

"When I was yonge, at eighteen yeres of age." 

But the direct inference from these words, as Mr. Bell 
remarks, is that the poem was written some time after the 
poet's eighteenth year. Mr. Bell, however, considers the 
modest, self-depreciating tone in which the poem opens, as 
conclusive of the fact, that it was composed in early youth. 
But this test is wholly fallacious, since similar protestations 
of ignorance and unskilfulness in his art are of constant 
occurrence all through Chaucer's works. They occur, for 
instance, in the Testament of Love, one of the very 
latest.* On the other hand, the smoothness of the versifi- 
cation, the perfect command over the resources of the lan- 
guage, and the finish of the poem generally, seem to bespeak 
the master's rather than the tyro's hand. A passage in 
the Assembly of Foules, implying that the poet had as 
yet no personal experience in love, is a more unequivocal 
evidence of early composition. f For this reason we have 
placed that poem the first on the list. 

The link of connection between the poems of the first 
period is this, that they all betray in the strongest manner 
the influence of the ideas and language of the Provencal 
poets. This influence need not, as Warton remarks, have 
been direct ; it may have come to Chaucer, not immediately 
from the Troubadours, but mediately through the Trou- 
veres ; but of its Provencal origin there can be no doubt. 
It was in Provence that the strange practice arose among 

* " Certes I wote wel, there shall be made more seorne and jape of me, 
that I, so unworthily clothed altogither in the cloudie cloude of unconning, 
will putten me in prees to speke of love." 

f " For al be that I knowe not Love in dede, 
Ne wot how that he quiteth folk hir hire, 
Yet happeth me fnl oft in bokes rede 
Of his myracles, and of his cruel ire." 
£ 2 



52 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITER ATUEE. 

the poets of parodying the theologians; for the sacred names 
of religion, they had their god of Love, and his mother 
Venus; for disputations in the schools upon theological 
theses, they had their " tensons " in knightly or royal halls 
upon various knotty points in love ; and for the solemn 
tribunals of ecclesiastical councils, their regularly organised 
" Courts of Love," to decide the debate between rival 
Troubadours. All these characteristics are copiously illus- 
trated in those of Chaucer's works which we have here 
grouped together. 

The works of the second period indicate, not Provencal, 
but Norman-French influences. They are all written in 
that short eight-syllable metre which the Trouveres usu- 
ally employed for their romances and fabliaux. The 
House of Fame, evidently the production of Chaucer's 
mature age, a poem showing much thought and learning, 
is quite in the style, no less than in the metre, of the 
Fabliaux. The Romaunce of the Rose is a translation 
of the long, allegorical poem bearing that title, begun by 
Guillaume de Lorris (died 1260), and continued by Jean 
de Meun. Chaucer translated the whole of Lorris's portion, 
extending to more than four thousand lines, and about 
three thousand six hundred out of the eighteen thousand 
lines which form Jean de Meun's continuation. 

The poems classed under the third period are marked by 
the influence of Italian literature. Troylus and Creseide 
is a free translation from the Filostrato of Boccaccio; 
the Knights Tale is a version of the same author's The- 
seide ; and the general plan of the Canterbury Tales 
was clearly suggested by that of the Decameron. The ten 
friends, assembled during the prevalence of the plague 
in a country house outside the walls of Florence, and 
beguiling the tedium of a ten days' quarantine by each 
telling a story daily, are represented in the English poem 
by the thirty-two pilgrims, bound to the shrine of St. 
Thomas at Canterbury, each of whom (except the host) 



EARLY ENGLISH PEEIOD. 53 

binds himself to tell a story for the amusement of the 
company, both going and returning. Several others of 
the Canterbury Tales, besides the Knights Tale, are from 
Italian sources. The clerk says expressly, in his prologue, 
that he learned the tale of Grisilde from Petrarch. 

In the works of the fourth period, though extraneous 
influences may of course be detected, Chaucer's original 
genius is predominant. The Legencle of Good Women 
was written to make amends for the many disparaging 
reflections which Chaucer had cast in former works on 
woman's truth and constancy in love. Alcestis, the self- 
sacrificing wife of Admetns, whom in the Court of Love 
he names as queen and mistress under Venus in the castle 
of Love, imposes the following task upon her poet : — 

" Now wol I seyne what penance thou shalt do 
For thy trespas, understonde yt here ; — 
Thow shalt while that thou livest, yere by yere, 
The most partye of thy tyme spende 
In making of a glorious legende 
Of good wymmen, maydenes, and wyves, 
That weren trewe in loving all hire lyves." 

The late date of the composition of the poem is ascer- 
tained by the mention in it of most of his principal 
works : — 

" Thou hast translated the Bomaunce of the Rose, 
That is an heresy e ayeins my law " 



And — 



"And of Cresyde thou hast seyde as the lyst 



Again — 

" He made the boke that hight the Hous of Fame, 
And eke the death of Blaunche the Duchesse, 
And the Parlement of Foules, as I gesse, 
And al the Lore of Palamon and Arcite 
Of Thebes, thogh the story is knowen lyte." 

The " Love of Palamon and Arcyte " is the Knights 

E 3 



54 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Tale, the first and longest of the series. The mention of 
this as a separate work confirms the opinion that many of 
the Canterbury Tales were in circulation independently, 
before they were brought together and fitted into the 
general framework of the poem. 

The prologue to the Tales was probably the latest, or 
nearly the latest, part of the work. It consists of sketches, 
drawn with a spirit, life, and humour inexpressible, of the 
thirty-two Canterbury pilgrims. The Astrolabie is a 
treatise on astronomy, composed in 1391, for the use of 
Chaucer's second son, Louis. It opens thus: "Lytel 
Lowys my sonne, I perceive well by certain evidences 
thyne abylyte to lerne sciences touching nombres and 
proporcions." "Lytel Lowys" was at the time ten years 
old. The Testament of Love will be considered when we 
come to speak of the prose writings of the period. It is 
probably impossible to fix with exactness the date of its 
composition. He mentions in it that he has been " berafte 
out of dignity of office," words which might apply either 
to his dismissal from the office of Comptroller of Customs 
in 1386, or to his losing the appointment of Clerk of the 
King's Works in 1391. 

The Canterbury Tales, therefore, as a whole, belong 
to the last period of Chaucer's life, when his judgment and 
insight into character, developed by a long and wisely-used 
experience, were at their height, while his imagination gave 
no sign of growing dim. The machinery of the poem has 
been already in part explained. Of the thirty-two persons 
forming the company of pilgrims, one, the host of the 
Tabard, the inn in Southwark from which they start, 
is the guide and chief of the expedition. He is to tell no 
tale himself, but to be the judge of those which the other 
pilgrims tell. If the scheme announced in the prologue 
(that each pilgrim should tell two tales) had been fully 
executed, we should thus have sixty-two tales. In fact, 
there are but twenty-four, two of which are told by 



EAELY ENGLISH PERIOD. 55 

Chaucer, and a third by the Chanounes Yeoman, who 
is not one of the original party, but, with his master, 
joins the pilgrims on the road. This incompleteness 
is in marked contrast to the symmetrical exactness with 
which the less ambitious plan of the Decameron is 
worked out. 

Chaucer was the centre of a group of literary men, of 
whom he was the friend or master ; who admired and loved 
him, and in most cases strove to imitate him, though with 
very indifferent success. Of these, John Grower, the " an- 
cient Grower " of Shakspeare, was the chief.. Scarcely 
anything is known about him, except that he graduated 
at Oxford, and was rich. He wrote many French poems, 
evidently conceiving that by so doing he found a larger 
audience than by writing in English. At the end of one 
of these, he says, — 

"A Vuniversite de tout le monde 
Johan Grower ceste balade envoie." 

His principal production was a work in three parts, re- 
spectively entitled Speculum Meditantis, Vox Clamantis, 
and Confessio Amantis. The Speculum is in French 
rhymes, in ten books ; it was never printed, but there 
is a manuscript in the Bodleian Library. The poem, 
according to Warton, "displays the general nature of virtue 
and vice, enumerates the felicities of conjugal fidelity by 
examples selected from various authors, and describes 
the path which the reprobate ought to pursue for the 
recovery of the divine grace." The Vox Clamantis, a 
poem in Latin elegiacs, in seven books, also never printed, 
is in substance a history of the insurrection of the Com- 
mons, under Wat Tyler, in the reign of Eichard II. 
The Confessio Amantis, an English poem in eight books, 
written in the short romance metre of eight syllables, 
was finished in 1393. It has been frequently printed. 
Imitating the fantastic and exaggerated language of the 
Troubadours, Grower presents us in this poem with a 

E 4 



56 HISTORY. OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

long- colloquy between a lover and his confessor, who is 
a priest of Venus. Their conversation consists in great 
part of learned disquisitions upon politics, astrology, and 
physiology, stuffed with all the crude absurdities which 
suited the coarse palate of that age. Apart from this 
sham science, the work may be described as a collection 
of tales or fabliaux, the materials of which are gathered 
from various sources, but chiefly from the Gesta Rcmia- 
norum, and other vast compilations, which, under the 
name of Universal Histories, in which the smallest 
modicum of fact was diluted in an incredible quantity of 
fiction, amused and edified the naive credulity of the 
Middle Age. 

If chronological order had been strictly followed, the 
author of the Vision of Piers Plowman should have 
been mentioned before Grower, if not before Chaucer. 
His name, according to Warton, was Eobert Langlande ; — 
he was a fellow of Oriel College, and a secular priest. The 
poem is allegorical, and, like many of Chaucer's, describes 
a vision seen in a dream. It extends to about 14,000 
short, or 7,000 long lines, of two or four accents. It is 
written throughout with a didactic purpose, which often ap- 
pears in the form of special satire on particular classes or 
professions. Abuses in religion, and the mal-practices of 
ecclesiastics, form, as might be expected, the chief mark 
for this satire. A crowd of allegorical personages, repre- 
senting different types of human character, after being- 
brought to repentance by the preaching of Eeason, ear- 
nestly desire to find out the way to the abode of Truth ; 
their authorised spiritual guides do not know the road ; — 
and it is " Piers the ploughman " from whom they at last 
obtain the guidance which they require. The metre is 
alliterative, like that of the old Saxon poets. The 
writer seems to address himself to a class socially inferior 
to that which Chaucer and Grower sought to please, — 
a class, therefore, almost purely Saxon, and likely to 



EAELY ENGLISH PERIOD. 57 

receive with, pleasure a work composed in the old rhythm 
dear to their forefathers. The Vision is determined by 
internal allusions to about the year 1362. Piers Ploiv- 
TnarCs Crecle, a poem in the same metre, consisting of 
1,697 short lines, was composed after Wicliffe's death 
(1384) by one of his followers. In reading it one is 
strongly reminded of the Puritan writers of the sixteenth 
century. 

Thomas Occleve flourished about the year 1420. From 
an imprinted metrical version of a Latin political treatise, 
Warton extracts a pathetic lament by this poet upon 
the death of Chaucer : — 

"But welaway! so is mine herte wo, 
That the honour of English tongue is dead, 
Of which I wont was han * counsel and rede ! 
mayster dere, and fadir reverent," &c. 

His works were never printed, and are said to be not 
worth printing. 

John Lydgate, a Benedictine monk of Bury St. Ed- 
munds, who nourished about 1425, was also an admirer 
and imitator of Chaucer. He was, as a writer, less gifted 
than voluminous ; Eitson, in his Bibliographia Poetica, 
has enumerated two hundred and fifty-one of his produc- 
tions ; and this list is known to be incomplete. No writer 
was ever more popular in his own day, or perhaps less 
deserved his popularity. His versification is intolerably 
rough and inharmonious ; as unlike as possible to the 
musical movement of Chaucer ; his stories are prolix and 
dull, and his wit usually pointless. Instead of, like Chaucer, 
filling his ear and feeding his imagination with the poetry 
of Italy, the only country where literature had as yet 
emerged from barbarism and assumed forms comparable 
to those of antiquity, Lydgate's attention seems to have 

* To have. 



58 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

been engrossed, partly by the inane Latin literature* of 
the period, partly by the works of the romance writers 
and Trouveres, whose French was at that time a barbarous 
dialect, and whose rhythm was nearly as bad as his own. 
A selection from his minor poems was edited by Mr. Halli- 
well for the Percy Society, in 1840. His longer works are, 
— the Storie of Thebes, translated from Statius; the 
Falls of Princes (translated from a French paraphrase of 
Boccaccio's work Be Gasibus); and the History of the 
Siege of Troy. This last, a free version of Ghiido Colonna's 
Latin prose history, was undertaken at the command 
of Henry V. in 1412, and finished in 1420. The Falls 
of Princes are described by himself as a series of Trage- 
dies. All these three works are in the heroic rhyming 
measure. 

Among the minor poets of this period, there is none so 
well deserving of notice as Lawrence Minot, whose poems 
were accidentally discovered by Mr. Tyrrhwitt among the 
Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum, near the close of 
the last century. They celebrate the martial exploits of 
Edward III., from the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 to 
the taking of Gruisnes Castle in 1352, and would seem to 
have been composed contemporaneously with the events 
described. They are in the same stanza of six short 
lines, common among the romancers, in which Chaucer's 
Rime of Sir Thopas is written. Nothing is known of 
Minot's personal history. 

Scottish Poets : — Barbour ; James I. 

John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, is the author 
of a heroic poem entitled The Bruce, containing the 
history of Eobert Bruce, the victor of Bannockburn, and 
of Scotland, so far as that was influenced by him. The 
poem is believed to have been completed in the year 1735. f 

* This expression refers to the miscellaneous literature, not, of course, to 
the theological or philosophical works written in Latin. 



EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 59 

It is in the eight-syllable rhyming measure, and consists 
of between twelve and thirteen thousand lines. James I. 
of Scotland, who received his education while retained as 
a captive in England between the years 1405 and 1420, 
wrote his principal work, the King's Quhair, in praise of 
the lady who had won his heart and whom he afterwards 
married, the Lady Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Duke 
of Somerset. This poem, which is in a hundred and 
ninety-seven stanzas, divided into six cantos, contains 
much interesting matter of the autobiographical sort. 

Prose Writers : — Mandevile ; Chaucer ; Wycliffe. 

The earliest known work in English prose, the Travels 
of Sir John Mandevile, dates from this period. As before 
mentioned, the book had been originally written in French, 
and afterwards translated into > Latin. It was probably 
about the year 1360 that Sir John prepared and published 
an English version, also for the benefit of his own country- 
men. This is a proof that about this time the knowledge 
of French, even among the educated classes, was ceasing to 
be essential or universal. Mr. Wright* says of the work: 
" Professedly a guide to pilgrims to Jerusalem, to which a 
large portion of the work is devoted, it contains, never- 
theless, the description of nearly the whole of Asia, and of 
some parts of Africa and Europe, and extends to countries 
which its author visited, and to others which he certainly 

did not visit." "He assures us that he 

set out from England in 1322, and that he returned 

home and compiled his book in 1356 

There is no doubt that his book is partly a compilation ; 
. . . . it is evident that he made large use of the 
previous narrations of Marco Polo and of the Franciscan 
Oderic." There was, perhaps, no work more popular in 

* Early Travels in Palestine ; Bohn's Series. 



60 HISTORY OF EXOLISH LITERATURE. 

England during the fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries than 
Mandevile's Travels. 

Chaucer's prose works consist of two of the Canterbury 
Tales, — the Tale of Melibazns, and the Parson's Tale, — 
a translation of Boethius' Be Consolatione Philosophies, — 
the Astrolabie, and the Testament of Love. The Tale 
of Melibceus, the design of which is to enforce the duty of 
forgiveness of injuries, is one of those which are supposed 
to be told by the poet himself. The Parson's Tale is a 
treatise on the sacrament of penance. Both of these are 
written in fluent intelligible English, and present few other 
difficulties to the reader but those which the old ortho- 
graphy occasions. In translating Boethius, Chaucer was 
renewing for the men of his own day the service ren- 
dered by Alfred to the Anglo-Saxons. The Testament of 
Love is divided into three parts. It professes to be an 
imitation of the work of Boethius. In the first part, Love 
bequeaths instructions to her followers, whereby they may 
rightly judge of the causes of cross fortune, &c. In the 
second, " she teacheth the knowledge of one very Grod, our 
Creator ; as also the state of grace, and the state of glory.*' 
Throughout these two parts are scattered allusions, or 
what seem to be such, to the circumstances under which 
Chaucer lost his official employment, and was reduced 
to poverty. The third part is a remarkable discourse on 
necessity and freewill, in which the doctrine laid down 
by St. Augustine and expounded by the schoolmen, is 
eloquently set forth. Of the Astrolabie we have already 
spoken (see page 54). 

John Wycliffe, at one time head of Canterbury Hall at 
Oxford, and afterwards Eector of Lutterworth, completed 
about the year 1380 a translation from the Vulgate into 
English of the whole of the Old and New Testaments. 
The language of this version is extremely rough. Wycliffe 
also wrote many polemical tracts, against the Eoman Court, 
the wealth of the clergy, against the right of bad men to 



EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 61 

hold property, and finally against some of the doctrines 
then commonly received. A bold earnest tone distin- 
guishes his style ; but it is harsh in the extreme ; his 
language is far ruder than that of Chaucer or Mandevile ; 
and, whatever may be thought of the substance of his 
writings, he cannot be said to have contributed to the 
progress of our literature, or aided to polish our language. 



62 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAPTER II. 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 
1450 — 1558. 

M. Sismondi, in his admirable work on the literature of 
the South of Europe, has a passage*, explaining the de- 
cline of Italian literature in the fifteenth century, which 
is so strictly applicable to the corresponding decline of 
English literature for a hundred and seventy years after 
Chaucer, that we cannot forbear quoting it : — 

"The century which, after the death of Petrarch, had 
been devoted by the Italians to the study of antiquity, 
during which literature experienced do advance, and the 
Italian language seemed to retrograde, was not, however, 
lost to the powers of imagination. Poetry, on its first 
revival, had not received sufficient nourishment. The 
fund of knowledge, of ideas, and of images, which she 
called to her aid, was too restricted. The three great 
men of the fourteenth century, whom we first presented 
to the attention of the reader, had, by the sole force of 
their genius, attained a degree of erudition, and a subli- 
mity of thought, far beyond the spirit of their age. These 
qualities were entirely personal ; and the rest of the Italian 
bards, like the Provencal poets, were reduced, by the 
poverty of their ideas, to have recourse to those continual 
attempts at wit, and to that mixture of unintelligible ideas 
and incoherent images, which render the perusal of them 
so fatiguing. The whole of the fifteenth century was 

* Vol. ii. p. 400 (Roseoe). 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 63 

employed in extending in every direction the knowledge 
and resources of the friends of the Muses. Antiquity was 
unveiled to them in all its elevated characters — its severe 
laws, its energetic virtues, and its beautiful and engaging- 
mythology ; — in its subtle and profound philosophy, its 
overpowering eloquence, and its delightful poetry. An- 
other age was required to knead afresh the clay for the 
formation of a nobler race. At the close of the century, a 
divine breath animated the finished statue, and it started 
into life." 

Mutatis mutandis, these eloquent sentences are exactly 
applicable to the case of English literature. Chaucer's 
eminence was purely personal ; even more so, perhaps, than 
that of the great Italians, for the countrymen of Dante, 
Petrarch, and Boccaccio, at least possessed a settled and 
beautiful language, adapted already to nearly all literary 
purposes ; while the tongue of Chaucer was in so rude and 
unformed a condition that only transcendent genius could 
make a work expressed through it endurable. The fifteenth 
century seems to have been an age of active preparation 
in every country of Europe. Though no great books were 
produced in it, it witnessed the invention of the art of 
printing, the effect of which was so to multiply copies of 
the master-pieces of Greek and Eoman genius, to reduce 
their price, and to enlarge the circle of their readers, as to 
supply abundantly new materials for thought, and new 
models of artistic form, and thus pave the way for the 
great writers of the close of the next century. Printing, 
invented at Mentz by Gutenberg about the year 1450, was 
introduced into England by William Caxton in 1474. The 
zealous patronage of two enlightened noblemen, Lord Wor- 
cester and Lord Eivers, greatly aided him in his enterprise. 
This century was also signalized by the foundation of many 
schools and colleges, in which the liberal founders desired 
that the recovered learning of antiquity should be uninter- 
ruptedly and effectually cultivated. Eton, the greatest of 



64 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

the English schools, and King's College at Cambridge, 
were founded by Henry VI. between 1440 and 1450. 
Three new universities arose in Scotland — that of St. 
Andrew's in 1410, of Glasgow in 1450, of Aberdeen in 
1494; — all under the express authority of different Popes. 
Three or four unsuccessful attempts were made in the 
course of this and the previous century, — the latest in 
1496 — to establish a university in Dublin . Several col- 
leges were founded at Oxford and Cambridge in the reign 
of Henry VIII., among which we may specify Christ 
Church, the largest college at the former university, which, 
however, was originally planned by the magnificent Wolsey 
on a far larger scale, and the noble foundation of Trinity 
College, Cambridge. 

In the period now before us our attention will be di- 
rected to three subjects; — the poets, whether English or 
Scotch, — the state and progress of learning, — and the 
prose writers. The manner in which the great and complex 
movement of the Eeformation influenced for good or evil 
the development of literature, is too wide a subject to 
be fully considered here. Something, however, will be 
said under this head, when we come to sketch the rise 
of the "new learning," or study of the Humanities in 
England, and inquire into the causes of its fitful and 
intermittent growth. 

Poetry; — Hawes, Skelton, Surrey, Wyat; first Poet Laureate. 

The poets of this period, at least on the English side 
of the border, were of small account. The middle of the 
fifteenth century witnessed the expulsion of the English 
from France ; and a time of national humiliation is un- 
favourable to the production of poetry. If, indeed, humi- 
liation become permanent, and involve subjection to the 
stranger, the plaintive wailings of the elegiac Muse are 
naturally evoked; as we see in the instances of Ireland 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 65 

and Wales. But where a nation is merely disgraced, not 
crushed, it keeps silence, and waits for a better day. For 
more than thirty years after the loss of the French pro- 
vinces, England was distracted and weakened by the civil 
wars of the Eoses. This also was a time unfavourable 
to poetry, the makers of which then and long afterwards 
depended on the patronage of the noble and wealthy, — a 
patronage which, in that time of fierce passions, alternate 
suffering, and universal disquietude, was not likely to be 
steadily maintained. Why the fifty years which followed 
the victory of Bos worth should have been so utterly barren 
of good poetry, it is less easy to see. All that can be said 
is, that this was an age of preparation, in which men dis- 
entombed and learned to appreciate old treasures, judging 
that they were much better employed than in attempting 
to produce new matter, with imperfect means and models. 
Towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII. were pro- 
duced the Songs and Sonnettes of the friends Lord 
Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyat ; and Sackville wrote the 
Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates in the last 
year of Mary. 

Scotland seems to have been about a century later than 
England in arriving at the stage of literary culture which 
Chaucer and his contemporaries illustrate. Several poets 
of no mean order arose in that country during the period 
now in question. Of some of these, namely, Dunbar, 
Grawain Douglas, Lyndsay, and Henryson, we shall pre- 
sently have to make particular mention. 

Stephen Hawes, groom of the chamber to Henry VII., 
wrote, among other poems, the Pastime of Pleasure , a nar- 
rative allegory like the Romance of the Rose, the Vision 
of Piers Ploivman, and so many other favourite poems of 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This work is in the 
seven-line stanza so much employed by Chaucer. The ver- 
sification has little of the smoothness and music of the 
great master ; it is rough and untunable, like that of Lyd- 
gate. An extract from this work will be found in Percy's 

F 



65 HISTOKY OF ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

Reliques. Hawes must have died after the year 1509, 
since we have among his poems a Coronation ode cele- 
brating the accession of Henry VIII. John Skelton, a 
secular priest, studied at both universities, and had a high 
reputation for scholarship in the early part of the sixteenth 
century. It is certain that his Latin verses are much 
superior to his serious attempts in English. A long ram- 
bling elegy in the seven-line stanza on Henry, fourth Earl 
of Northumberland, murdered in 1489, will be found in 
Percy. The versification is even worse than that of Hawes. 
In Skelton's satires there is a naturalness and a humour, 
which make them still readable. Several of these con- 
tained vigorous attacks on Cardinal Wolsey, to escape from 
whose wrath Skelton had to take sanctuary at Westminster, 
and afterwards was protected by Bishop Islip till his death 
in 1529. Alexander Barclay, a monk, first of Ely, after- 
wards of Canterbury, is known as the translator, with 
additions, of Sebastian Brandt's German poem of the 
Ship of Fools, a satire upon society in general. 

Far above these barbarous rhymers rose the poetic 
genius of Surrey. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, son 
of the victor of Flodden, was born about the year 1516. 
At the age of sixteen he was contracted in marriage to 
the Lady Frances Vere. His (xeraldine, to whom so 
many of his sonnets are addressed, was a daughter of 
the Earl of Kildare. She slighted his passion; and the 
rejected lover carried the fiery ardour of his spirit into 
the scenes of war and diplomacy. Having committed 
some errors in the conduct of the campaign in France in 
1546, he was thrown into prison by order of the "jealous 
ruthless tyrant," * who then sat on the throne, brought to 

* Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto vi. 

" Thou jealous ruthless tyrant ! Heaven repay 
On thee, and on thy children's latest line, 
The wild caprice of thy despotic sway, 
The gory bridal-bed, the plundered shrine, 
The murdered Surrey's blood, the tears of G-eraldine." 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 67 

trial on a trumpery charge of high treason, and beheaded 
in January 1547, a few days before Henry's death. His 
Songes and Sonnettes, together with those of Wyat, were 
first published in 1557. His translation of the sesond and 
fourth books of the iEneid is the earliest specimen of blank 
verse in the language. 

Sir Thomas Wyat the elder, a native of Kent, was much 
employed by Henry VIII. on diplomatic missions, and over- 
exertion in one of these occasioned his early death in 1541. 
The improvement in grace and polish of style which dis- 
tinguishes Surrey and Wyat in comparison with their pre- 
decessors wa,s unquestionably due to Italian influences. 
The very term " sonnet,*' by them first introduced, is taken 
from the Italian " sonetto." Puttenham, in his Art of Poe- 
sie (1589), says of them, that "having travelled into Italie, 
and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and style of 
the Italian poesie, as novises newly crept out of the school of 
Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our 
rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie from that it had 
been before, and for that cause may justly be sayd the first 
reformers of our English metre and style." He reputes 
them for "the chief lanternes of light" to all subsequent 
English poets. "Their conceits were lofty, their st}de 
stately, their conveyance cleanly, their termes proper, 
their metre sweet and well-proportioned : in all imita- 
ting very naturally and studiously their master, Francis 
Petrarch." 

John Heywood, called the Epigrammatist, to distinguish 
him from the dramatist of the same name who flourished 
in the Elizabethan period, was a favourite at the court both 
of Henry VIII. and of Mary. He introduced a species of 
dramatic entertainment, called Interludes, bearing a con- 
siderable resemblance to our modern farces. These pieces, 
as the name implies, were short one-act plays, exhibited 
between the acts of regular tragedies or comedies. One 
of the most famous of them is called The Four Ps, in 

F 2 



68 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

which a Pardoner, a Poticary (or apothecary), a Palmer, 
and a Pedlar, are brought upon the stage together. 

The earliest mention of a poet laureate, eo nomine, 
occurs in the reign of Edward IV., by whom John Kaye 
was appointed to that office.* We read of a king's versifier 
(yersificator) as far back as 1251. The change of title 
admits of a probable explanation. The solemn crownino* 
of Petrarch on the Capitol, in the year 1341, made a pro- 
found sensation through all literary circles in Europe. 
Chaucer, as we have seen, distinguishes Petrarch as " the 
laureat poete." In the next century we find the dignity 
of jpoeta laureatus forming one of the recognized degrees 
at our universities, and conferred upon proof being given 
by the candidate of proficiency in grammar, rhetoric, and 
versification. It is impossible not to connect this practice 
of laureation with the world-famous tribute rendered by 
the Eomans to the genius of Petrarch. After the institu- 
tion of the degree, it is easy to understand that the king- 
would select his poet among the poetce laureati, and that 
the modest title of versificator would.be dropped. 



Scottish Poets:— Kenryson ; Dunbar; Gawain Douglas; 
Lyndsay. 

The present work does not pretend to trace the history 
of the Scottish poetry ; but, in the dearth of genius in 
England during this period, the rise of several admirable 
poets in the sister country demands our attention. The 
earliest of these, Eobert Henryson, appears to have died 
about the end of the fifteenth century. His longest poem, 
the Testament of Faire Creseyde, a sort of supplement to 
Chaucer's Troll us and Creseyde, was printed by Urry in 
his edition of that poet. The pastoral, called Robin and 
Makyne, is given in Percy's Reliques. The pith of the 

* Hazlitt's Johnson's Lives, article Kaye. 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 69 

story is exactly that which we find in Burns' Duncan Gray, 
only that in Henryson's poem the parts are reversed ; it, 
is the lady who first makes love in vain, and then growing 
indifferent, is vainly wooed by the shepherd who has re- 
pented of his coldness. The Abbey Walk is a beautiful 
poem of reflexion, the moral of which is, the duty and 
wisdom of submitting humbly to the will of God in 
all things. 

William Dunbar, the greatest of the old Scottish poets, 
was a native of East Lothian, and born about the middle 
of the fifteenth century. He studied at the university of 
St. Andrew's, perhaps also at Oxford. In early life he 
entered the novitiate of the Franciscan order, but does not 
appear to have taken the vows. James IV. attached him 
by many favours to his person and court, where we have 
certain evidence of his having lived from 1500 to 1513, 
the date of Flodden. After that fatal day, on which his 
royal patron perished, his name vanishes from the Scottish 
records, and it is merely a loose conjecture which assigns 
his death to about the year 1520. 

Dunbar's most perfect poem is the Thistle and the Rose, 
written in 1503 to commemorate the nuptials of James IV. 
and Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. The metre is the 
Chaucerian heptastich, or seven-line stanza, invented by 
Chaucer, and employed by all his successors down to 
Spenser inclusive. The versification is most musical, — 
superior to that of any poet before Spenser except Chaucer, 
and better than much of his. The influence, both direct 
and indirect, of the father of our poetry, is visible, not 
in this poem alone, but throughout the works of the school 
of writers now under consideration. The poet, according 
to the approved mediaeval usage, falls asleep and has a 
dream, in which May — the "faire frische May" in which 
Chaucer so delighted, — appears to him, and commands 
him to attend her into a garden and do homage to the 
flowers, the birds, and the sun. Nature is then introduced, 

F 3 



70 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and commands that the progress of the spring shall no 
longer be checked by ungenial weather. Neptune and 
iEolus give the necessary orders. Then Nature, by her 
messengers, summons all organized beings before her, — 
the beasts by the roe, the birds by the swallow, the flowers 
by the yarrow. The Lion is crowned king of the beasts, 
the Eagle of the birds, and the Thistle of the flowers. 
The Eose, the type of beauty, is wedded to the Thistle, the 
type of strength, who is commanded well to cherish and 
guard his Eose. Such is an outline of the plot of this 
beautiful and graceful poem. 

"The design of the Golden Terge" — another allegoric 
poem — "is to show the gradual and imperceptible in- 
fluence of love when too far indulged over reason." * This 
poem is in a curious nine-line stanza, having only two 
rhymes. But Dunbar excelled also in comic and satirical 
composition. The Dance of the Seven deadly Sins is a 
production of this kind, the humour, dash, and broad 
Scotch of which remind one strongly of Burns. The metre 
is that of Chaucer's Sir TJiopas. Some Highlanders are 
introduced at the end, and receive very disrespectful 
mention : — 

" Thae turmagantis with tag and tatter 
Full loud in Ersche [Erse] begout to clatter, 

And rowp lyk revin and ruke. 
The devil sa devit wes with thair yell 
That in the deepest pit of hell 

He smorit them with smoke." 

Grawain Douglas, sprung from a noble family, studied 
at the university of Paris, and rose to be bishop of 
Dunkeld. After Flodden field, the regent Albany drove 
him from Scotland. Coming into England, he was hospit- 
ably received by Henry, who allowed him a liberal pension. 
He died in London of the plague, in 1521. He is chiefly 
known for a translation of the iEneid into heroic verse, 

* Warton 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 71 

which is the earliest English version on record, having 
been published in 1513. The prologues prefixed to the 
several books have great poetic beauty ; and the language 
presents little more difficulty than that of Chaucer. The 
concluding lines of one of these prologues are subjoined 
as a specimen ; they are part of an address to the 
sun : — 

" "Welcum depaynter of the blomyt medis, 
Welcum the lyffe of everything that spredis, 
Welcum storare * of all kynd bestial, 
Welcum be thy bricht hemes gladand aL" 

Sir David Lyndsay was a satirist of great power and 
boldness. He is the Jean de Meun f of the sixteenth 
century ; but, as a layman and a knight, he levels his satire 
with even greater directness and impartiality than that 
extraordinary ecclesiastic. In his allegorical satire, entitled 
The Dreme, the poet is conducted by Eemembrance, first 
to the infernal regions, which he finds peopled with church- 
men of every grade, — then to Purgatory, — then through 
the " three elements " to the seven planets in their succes- 
sive spheres, — then beyond them to the empyrean and 
the celestial abodes. The poetical topography is without 
doubt borrowed from Dante. He is then transported back 
to earth, and visits Paradise ; whence, by a " very rapid 
transition," as Warton calls it, he is taken to Scotland, 
where he meets iS Johne the comounweill," who treats him 
to a long general satire on the corrupt state of that king- 
dom. After this the poet is in the usual manner brought 
back to the cave by the sea side, where he fell asleep, 
and wakes up from his dream. The metre is the Chau- 
cerian heptastich. There is prefixed to the poem an 
exhortation in ten stanzas, addressed to King James V., in 
which advice and warning are conveyed with unceremo- 

* Restorer. 

f Author of the continuation of the Roman de la Rose ; the causti 
cynicism of vhich is almost incredible. 

F 4 



72 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

nious plainness. Among Lyndsay's remaining poems, the 
most important is the Monarchie, an account of the most- 
famous monarchies that have flourished in the world, 
commencing with the creation of man, and ending with 
the day of judgement. This poem, which is for the most 
part in the common romance metre, or eight-syllable 
couplet, runs over with satire and invective. Lyndsay's 
powerful attacks on the Scottish clergy, the state of which 
at that time unfortunately afforded but too much ground 
for them, are said to have hastened the religious war in 
Scotland. 

The language of all these Scottish writers in their serious 
compositions closely resembles the English of their con- 
temporaries south of the Tweed ; the chief difference 
consisting in certain dialectic peculiarities, such as the use 
of " quh " for " wh," and of " it " and " and " for " ed " and 
" ing," in the terminations of the past and present partici- 
ples. But in proportion as they resort to comic expression, 
and attach their satire to particular places or persons, 
their language becomes less English, and slides into the 
rough vernacular of their ordinary speech. Exactly the 
same thing is observable in Burns' poetry. 



Learning : — Grocyn, Colet, the Humanities ; State of the 
Universities. 

The fifteenth century was, as we have said, pre- 
eminently an age of accumulation, assimilation, and 
preparation. 

The first two-thirds of the sixteenth century fall under 
the same general description. England had to bring herself 
up to the intellectual le^el of the continent, and to master 
the treasures of literature and philosophy, which the revi- 
val and diffusion of Greek, and partly of Eoman learning, 
had placed within her reach, before her writers could 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 73 

attempt to rival the fame of the great ancients. There is 
much interest in tracing in detail the numerous minute steps 
and individual acts which helped on this process. Many 
such are related by Wood in his Athence Oxonienses. 
Thus we are told that the first man who publicly taught ) 
Greek at Oxford was William Grrocyn. Stapleton, a 
Catholic writer of the age of Elizabeth, says, " Eecens 
tunc ex Italia venerat Grocinus, qui primus in ea setate 
Grrsecas literas in Angliam invexerat, Oxoniique publice 
professus fuerat." Of course Grocyn had to go abroad to 
get this new learning. Born about 1450, and educated 
at Oxford, he travelled on the continent about the year 
1488, and studied both at Eome and Florence. Greek 
learning nourished then at Florence more than at any 
place in Europe, owing to the fact that Lorenzo de Medici 
had eagerly welcomed to his court many illustrious and 
learned refugees, who, subsequently to the fall of Constan- 
tinople, had been forced to seek shelter from the violence 
and intolerance of the Mussulmans in Western Europe. 
One of these learned Byzantines, Demetrius Chalcocondyles, 
together with the Italian Angelo Politian, afforded to 
Grrocyn by their public instructions those opportunities 
which he had left his country to search for, — of penetrating 
into the sanctuary of classical antiquity, and drinking in at 
the fountain head the inspirations of a national genius, 
whose glories no lapse of time can obscure. Gibbon,* with ... 
his usual fulness of learning and wonderful mastery 
of style, has thus sketched' the features of this eventful 
time : — 

" The genius and education of Lorenzo rendered him 
not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the 
literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief, 
and merit to reward ; his leisure hours were delightfully 
spent in the Platonic academy; he encouraged the emula- 

* Decline and Fall, ch. Ixvi, 



74 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

tion of Demetrius Chalcocondyles and Angelo Politian; 
and his active missionary, Janus Lascaris, returned from 
the East with a treasure of two hundred manuscripts, 
four score of which were as yet unknown in the libraries 
of Europe. The rest of Italy was animated by a similar 
spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the liberality 
of her princes. The Latins held the exclusive property of 
their own literature, and these disciples of Greece were 
soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons 
which they had imbibed. After a short succession of 
foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided, but the 
language of Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps ; 
and the natives of France, Grermany, and England im- 
parted to their countrymen the sacred fire which they 
had kindled in the schools of Florence and Eome." After 
noticing the spirit of imitation which long prevailed, he 
continues : — " Grenius may anticipate the season of matu- 
rity ; but in the education of a people, as in that of an 
individual, memory must be exercised before the powers 
of reason and fancy can be expanded ; nor may the artist 
hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate the 
works of his predecessors." 

But to return to Crrocyn,whose visit to Florence occasioned 
this quotation. When settled in Oxford again, about the 
year 1490, he opened his budget, and taught Grreek to all 
comers. Among his hearers was a youth of much promise 
from London, known afterwards to his own and later ages 
as Sir Thomas More. More was further instructed in 
Greek by a private tutor, Thomas Lynacre, the physician, 
who had gained his medical degree, as well as his Greek, in 
Italy. Another active patron of the new learning was Dean 
Colet, the founder of St. Paul's school, and the friend of 
Erasmus. He too had travelled extensively, and observed 
admiringly ; he had remarked how Lorenzo de Medici 
laboured to build up a sort of Utopia of intelligence and 
refinement, made beautiful by Art, and governed by Wis- 



REVIVAL OF LEAKXIXG. 75 

dom ; and it seems that in these rougher northern climates 
he had some design of reproducing a faint resemblance 
of the gardens of Bellosguardo. On the lands of his mo- 
nastery at Sheen, near Kichmond, he built himself, long 
before his death, a magnificent mansion, whither, he said, 
he designed to retire in his old age, and amid a circle of 
intellectual friends enjoy the sweets of a philosophical and 
lettered ease.* This was a Pagran rather than a Christian 
ideal ; it shows how far the contact with the genius of 
antiquity intoxicated the spirit even of a thoroughly good 
man ; how disturbing, then, must have been its effects upon 
men of lower character ! 

In this age of strange excitement, when a new world, 
supposed to teem with wealth, had just been discovered 
in the West, when by the invention of printing thoughts 
were communicated and their records multiplied with 
a speed which must then have seemed marvellous, and 
when the astronomical theory of Copernicus was revolu- 
tionizing men's ideas as to the very fundamental relations 
between the earth and the heavens, unsettling those even 
whom it did not convince, there was a temporary forgetful- 
ness even on the part of many Christian priests that this 
life, dignify it as you may, is, after all, a scene of trial not 
of triumph, and that, if Christianity be true, suffering is 
on earth a higher state than enjoyment, and poverty in 
one sense preferable to wealth. The Eeformers seized on 
this weak point then noticeable in many of the clergy, and 
made out of it, to use a modern phrase, abundant con- 
troversial capital. Human learning, they said, — Luther 
himself originated the cry — was a waste of time as well as 
a dangerous snare ; — art was a mere pandering to the pas- 
sions ; — sinful man should be engrossed but by one pursuit, 
the pursuit of salvation — should study only one book, and 
that the Bible. When the Protestant party came into 

* Flanagan's Church Hist. vol. ii. p. 11, 



76 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

power under Edward VI., this spirit operated with preju- 
dicial effect on the young plants of learning and culture 
which had begun to spring up at our universities. To take 
one well-known instance ; — the ecclesiastical commissioners 
of Edward, in their visitation to Oxford, destroyed or 
removed a valuable collection, impossible to be replaced, 
of six hundred manuscripts of the classical authors, pre- 
sented by Humphrey, the good duke of Gloucester, to that 
University. But when the Catholic hierarchy, acknow- 
ledging by their conduct that these censures contained 
some truth, and noticing also that the disproportionate 
attachment to the new studies was a frequent cause of 
unsettlement of faith, changed their tactics in some 
countries, and, discouraging the study of the Humanities, 
attempted to revive the old scholastic philosophy, then the 
charge was immediately reversed. Then the cry was, (i You 
are trying to shut out enlightenment, to set up the bar- 
barous scholastic, in preference to the Ciceronian, Latinity, 
— you are enemies of progress, of civilization, of the en- 
largement of the mind." 

This point will be illustrated presently. In connexion 
with the spread of learning in England, the name of 
Cardinal Wolsey must not be omitted. Shakspeare 
has described his services in language that cannot be 
amended : — * 

" This Cardinal, 
Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly 
Was fashioned to much honour from his cradle. 
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading ; 
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, 
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer. 
And though he were unsatisfied in getting, 
("Which was a sin) yet, in bestowing, madam, 
He was most princely. Ever witness for him 
Those twins of learning, which he raised in yon 

* Henry VIII. Act iv. Scene 2. 



EEVIVAL OF LEAKMNG. 77 

Ipswich and Oxford ; one of which fell with him, 
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it ; 
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famoiis, 
So excellent in art, and still so rising, 
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue." 

Cambridge soon followed the example of Oxford in 
introducing the study of Greek. Towards the close of the 
reign of Henry VIII., Sir John Cheke and Sir Thomas 
Smith are mentioned in the annals of that university 
as having been especially active in promoting this study. 
Milton refers to this in one of his sonnets : — 

" Thy age, like ours, soul of Sir John Cheke, 
Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, 
When thou taught' st Cambridge and King Edward Greek." 

The sense of insecurity induced among all classes 
by Henry's tyranny in his later years, and the social 
confusion which prevailed in the following reign, in- 
terrupted the peaceful flow of learned studies. The 
universities appear to have been sunk in a lower depth 
of inefficiency and ignorance about the year 1550, 
than ever before or since. Under Mary, Cardinal Pole, 
the legate, was personally favourable to the new learning. 
Sir Thomas Pope, the founder of Trinity College, Oxford, 
consulted him on the framing of the college statutes, 
in which it was provided that Greek should form one 
of the subjects of instruction. In his legatine consti- 
tutions, passed at a synod held in 1555, Pole ordered 
that all Archbishops and Bishops, as well as holders 
of benefices in general, should assign a stated portion 
of their revenues to the support of cathedral schools in 
connexion with every metropolitan and cathedral church 
throughout the kingdom, into which lay scholars of re- 
spectable parentage were to be admitted, together with 
theological students. These cathedral schools were kept 
up in the following reign, and seem to have attained 



78 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

considerable importance. But one enlightened and gene- 
rous mind could not restrain the reactionary violence 
of the Grardiners and the Bonners. Under their manage- 
ment a system of obscurantism was attempted, if not 
established, at the universities ; the Grreek poets and 
philosophers were to be banished, and scholasticism was 
to reign once more in the schools. Ascham, in his 
Schoolmaster, thus describes the state of things : 

" The love of good learning began suddenly to wax cold ; 
the knowledge of the tongues was manifestly contemned ; — 
yea, I know that heads were cast together, and counsel 
devised, that Duns, with all the rabble of barbarous 
questionists, should have dispossessed of their place and 
room Aristotle, Plato, Tully, and Demosthenes, whom 
good Mr. Eedman, and those two worthy stars of that 
university, Cheke and Smith, with their scholars, had 
brought to nourish as notably in Cambridge as ever they 
did in France and in Italy." 

If this account can be trusted, it explains to a con- 
siderable extent the rooted persuasion which has always 
prevailed in England, that the Catholic system is hostile 
to the progress of learning. 

Prose Writers. 

Although no prose work produced during this period 
can be said to hold a place in our standard literature, 
considerable progress was made in fitting the rough and 
motley native idiom for the various requirements of prose 
composition. Among the works that have come down to us, 
perhaps the most interesting is Sir John Fortescue's trea- 
tise on the Difference betiveen an Absolute and a Limited 
Monarchy. The author was Chief Justice of the Court of 
King's Bench in the time of Henry VI. He was at first a 
zealous Lancastrian ; he fought at Towton, and was taken 
prisoner at Tewkesbury in 1471, after which he was 



REVIVAL OF LEARXIXG. 79 

attainted. But upon the death of Henry in that year, 
leaving no son, Fortescue admitted the legality of the claim 
of the house of York, and thereby obtained the reversal 
of the attainder. The title of the work mentioned is not 
very appropriate ; it should rather be, — a " Treatise on the 
best means of raising a revenue for the King, and cement- 
ing his power;" — these, at least, are the points prominently 
handled. The opening chapters, drawing a contrast 
between the state and character of the English peasantry 
under the constitutional crown of England, and those 
of the French peasantry under the absolute monarchy 
of France, are full of acute remarks and curious infor- 
mation. It is instructive to notice, that Fortescue (ch. xii.) 
speaks of England's insular position as a source of weak- 
ness, because it laid her open to attack on every side. 
The observation reminds us how modern a creation is the 
powerful British navy, the wooden walls of which have 
turned that position into our greatest safeguard. This 
work is in excellent English, and, if freed from the bar- 
barous orthography in which it is disguised, could be read 
with ease and pleasure at the present day. No other 
prose writer of the fifteenth century deserves notice, 
unless we except Caxton, who wrote a continuation of 
Trevisa's Chronicle to the year 1460, and printed the 
entire work in 1482. 

The effect of the revival of ancient learning* was for 
a long time to induce our ablest literary men to aim at 
a polished Latin style, rather than endeavour to improve 
their native tongue. Erasmus wished that Latin should 
be the common literary language of Europe ; he always 
wrote in it himself, and held what he termed the barbar- 
ous jargon of his Dutch father-land in utter detestation. 
So Leland, More, and Pole, composed, if not all, yet 
their most important and most carefully-written works 
in Latin. John Leland, the famous antiquary, to whose 
It t tier avium we owe so much interesting topographical 



SO HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and sociological information for the period immediately 
following the destruction of the monasteries, is the author 
of a number of Latin elegies, in various metres, upon the 
death of Sir Thomas Wyat the elder, which evince no 
common elegance and mastery over the language. More's 
Utopia, published in 1516, was composed in Latin, 
but has been translated by Burnet and others. The 
idea of the work is evidently taken from Plato's Common- 
wealth ; and even the communism of the Greek philosopher 
is re-produced. "In all other places it is visible, that 
while people talk of a commonwealth, every man only 
seeks his own wealth ; but [in Utopia'], where no man 
has any property, all men zealously pursue the good of 
the public." More's English writings are — a History of 
the Life and Reign of Edward V., written about 1513, 
a collection of Letters, and several controversial tracts in 
reply to Tyndal and other English reformers. 

The regular series of English prose chronicles com- 
mences in this period. Eobert Fabyan was an alderman 
and sheriff of London in the reign of Henry VII. ; his Con- 
cordance of Story es, giving the history of England from 
the fabulous Brutus to the year 1485, was published after 
the author's death in 1516. Successive subsequent editions 
of this work continued the history to 1559. Edward Hall, 
an under-sheriff of London, wrote in 1542 a chronicle, en- 
titled the Union of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster 
and York, bringing the narrative down to 1532. Eichard 
(xrafton, himself the author of two independent chronicles 
in the reign of Elizabeth, printed in 1548 a new edition 
of Hall, with a continuation to the end of Henry's reign. 
A curious biographical work, Illustrium Majoris Britan- 
nia? Scriptorum Summarium, was written by John Bale, 
a reformer, afterwards Bishop of Ossory, in 1548. The 
accuracy of this writer may be judged of by the fact, that 
in the article on Chaucer he fixes the date of the poet's 
death in 1450, and in the list of his works includes the 






REVIVAL OP LEARNING.. 81 

Fall of Princes (which was by Lydgate), and omits the 
Canterbury Tales. 

Not much of the theological writing of the period 
possessed more than a passing value. Portions of it are 
indirectly interesting, as illustrating manners and customs, 
or as tinged with the peculiar humour of the writer. The 
sermons of Bishop Latimer, one of the leading reformers, 
who was burnt at the stake under Mary, possess this two- 
fold attraction. Thus, in preaching against covetousness, 
he complains of the great rise in rents and in the price 
of provisions that had taken place in his time, winding up 
his recital of grievances with the singular climax, — "I think, 
verily, that if it thus continue, we shall at length be con- 
strained to pay for a pig a pound." The strange humour 
of the man breaks out in odd similes— -in unexpected 
applications of homely proverbs — in illustrations of the 
great by the little, and the little by the great : nor is 
it, it must be owned, ever restrained by good taste or 
reverence. Cranmer's works have but small literary valu^, 
though most important from the historical point of view. 
John Bale, already mentioned, Becon, Eidley, Hooper, 
and Tyndal, all composed theological tracts, chiefly con- 
troversial. More, Bishop Fisher,, and Pole were the lead- 
ing writers on the Catholic side. More's English works 
were printed in two black-letter folio volumes in the 
year 1557. All except the first two, — a Life of Picus of 
Mirandula, and the unfinished History of Edward V. (or 
of Eichard III., as it is called in this edition), which has been 
already mentioned, are either of a devotional character, or 
treat of the chief points of religious controversy which were 
then under debate. His last work (1534) — a Treatise 
on the Passion — remains unfinished ; and the editor has 
appended in a colophon these touching words : " Sir 
Thomas More wrote no more of this woorke ; for when he 
had written this farre, he was in prison kept so streyght, 

G 



82 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

that all his bokes and penne and ynke and paper was taken 
from hym, and sone after was he putte to death." 

The close of the period was adorned by the scholarship 
and refined good sense of Koger Ascham. A native of 
Yorkshire, he was sent at an early age to Cambridge, and 
during a lengthened residence there diligently promoted 
the study of the new learning. In 1544 he wrote and 
dedicated to Henry VIII. his Toxophilus, a treatise on 
Archery, in which, for military and other reasons, he de- 
precates the growing disuse of that noble art. His exer- 
tions were vain: we hear indeed of the bow as still a 
formidable weapon at the battle of Pinkie in 1547 ; but 
from that date it disappears from our military history. 
In 1550 Ascham went to Germany as Secretary to Sir 
Richard Morissine, who was then proceeding as ambassador 
to the Imperial Court; and in 1553, while at Brussels, he 
wrote in the form of a letter to a friend in England a 
curious unfinished tract, in which the character and 
career of Maurice of Saxony, whose successful enterprise 
he had witnessed, and of two or three other German 
princes, are described with much acuteness. 

In 1553 he was appointed Latin secretary to Edward VI., 
and retained the office (the same that Milton held 
under Cromwell) during the reign of Mary. On the 
accession of Elizabeth he received the additional appoint- 
ment of reader in the learned languages to the Queen. 
Elizabeth used to take lessons from him at a stated hour 
each day. In 1563 he wrote his Schoolmaster, a treatise 
on education. This work was never finished, and was 
printed by his widow in I$7.1. The sense and acuteness of 
many of his pedagogic suggestions have been much dwelt 
upon by Johnson. An excellent biography of Ascham 
may be found in Hartley Coleridge's Northern Worthies. 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 83 



CHAPTER III. 

ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 
1558 — 1625. 

This is the golden or Augustan age of English litera- 
ture. After its brilliant opening under Chaucer, a period 
of poverty and feebleness had continued for more than 
a hundred and fifty years. Servile in thought and stiff in 
expression, it remained unvivified by genius even during 
the first half of the reign of Elizabeth ; and Italy with her 
Ariosto and Tasso, France with her Marot and Rabelais, 
Portugal with her Camoens, and even Spain with her 
Ercilla, appeared to have outstripped England in the race 
of fame. Hence Sir Philip Sidney in his Defence of Poesie, 
written shortly before his death in 1586, after awarding 
a certain meed of praise to Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser 
(whose first work had but lately appeared), does not " re- 
member to have seen many more [English poets] that 
have poetical sinews in them." But after the year 
1580 a change became apparent. England's Helicon, a 
poetical miscellany (comprising fugitive pieces composed 
between 1580 and 1600), to which Sidney, Raleigh, 
Lodge, and Marlowe contributed, is full of genuine and 
native beauties. Spenser published the first three books 
of the Faery Queen in 1590; Shakspeare's first play — 
supposed to have been the Tivo Gentlemen of Verona — 
appeared about the year 1586 ; and the Essays of Francis 
Bacon were first published in 1597. Raleigh, the first 
English historian worthy of the name, published his 
History of the World in 1614, and the first portion of 

G 2 



84 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Hooker's learned work on Ecclesiastical Polity appeared 
in 1597. 

The peaceable and firmly settled state of the country 
under Elizabeth was largely instrumental in the rise of 
this literary greatness. Under the tyranny of Henry VIII., 
and again in the short reigns of Edward and Mary, nothing- 
was settled or secure ; no calculations for the future could 
be made with confidence ; and those who had not to fear 
for their lives and property were afraid to express a free 
opinion, or act an open, independent part. Doubt, sus- 
pense, and mutual mistrust, paralysed all spontaneous action. 
At Elizabeth's accession, the perplexed and intimidated 
nation was ready to receive any form of Christianity which 
its government chose to impose upon it, provided it could 
obtain firm social peace. The government, influenced, 
not so much by the personal leanings of Elizabeth, as by 
an instinctive dread of the numerous holders of the 
church lands, lest, if Catholicity should be permanently 
established, restitution should eventually become the 
order of the day, — a feeling which, without doubt, was 
much aided by the horror which the revolting cruelties 
of Mary's government had everywhere excited, — decided 
upon establishing Protestantism. Elizabeth, whose sagacity 
detected the one paramount political want of the country, 
concluded in the second year of her reign a rather in- 
glorious peace with France, and devoted all her energies 
to the work of strengthening the power of her government, 
passing good laws, and improving the internal administra- 
tion of the kingdom. The consequences of the durable 
internal peace thus established were astonishing. Men 
began to trade, farm, and build with renewed vigour ; a 
great breadth of forest land was reclaimed ; travellers went 
forth to " discover islands far away," and to open new 
outlets for commerce; wealth, through this multiplied 
activity, poured into the kingdom ; and that general pros- 
perity was the result which led her subjects to invest the 



ELIZABETHAN PEEIOD. 85 

sovereign, under whom all this was done, with a hundred 
virtues and shining qualities not her own. Of this feeling 
Shakspeare became the mouthpiece and mirror : 

" She shall be loved and feared ; Her own shall bless her ; 
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, 
And hang their heads with sorrow; — Good grows with her; 
In her days every man shall eat in safety 
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing 
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours." 

There is indeed a reverse to the picture. Ireland was 
devastated in this reign with fire and sword; and the 
minority in England who adhered to the ancient faith 
became the victims of an organized system of persecution 
and plunder. Open a book by Cardinal Alien, and a 
scene of martyred priests, of harried and plundered lay- 
men, of tortured consciences, of bleeding yet indomitable 
hearts, will blot out from your view the smiling images 
of peace and plenty above portrayed. The mass of the 
people, however, went quietly with the government, 
and shut their ears against the cries of the oppressed 
Catholics, whose sufferings they were brought to believe 
were inflicted on thern for their disloyalty, not for their 
religion. The invented plots, the pre-arranged con- 
spiracies, the suborned perjurers, the frequent torture, 
all the dark and crooked machinations of the Cecils 
and Walsinghams, which modern research has unravelled, 
must have been unknown, or at most vaguely surmised, 
by the contemporary British public. 

Wealth and ease brought leisure in their train; and 
leisure demanded entertainment, not for the body only, 
but also for the mind. The people, for amusement's sake, 
took up the old popular drama, which had come down 
from the very beginning of the middle ages ; and, after a 
process of gradual transformation and elaboration by 
inferior hands, developed it, in the mouths of its Shak- 
speare, Jonson, and Fletcher, into the world-famed 

G 3 



86 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

romantic drama of England. As the reading class in- 
creased, so did the number of those who strove to minister 
to its desires; and although the religious convulsions 
which society had undergone had checked the move- 
ment towards a complete and profound appreciation of 
antiquity, which had been commenced by Colet, More, 
and Erasmus, in the universities, so that England could 
not then, nor for centuries afterwards, produce scholars in 
any way comparable to those of the continent, yet the 
number of translations which were made of ancient authors 
proves that there was a general taste for at least a super- 
ficial learning, and a very wide diffusion of it. Transla- 
tion soon led to imitation, and to the projection of new 
literary works on the purer principles of art disclosed in 
the classical authors. The epics of Ariosto and Tasso 
were also translated, the former by Harrington, the latter 
by Carew and Fairfax; and the fact shows both how 
eagerly the Italian literature was studied by people of 
education, and how general must have been the diffusion 
of an intellectual taste. Spenser doubtless framed his 
beautiful allegory in emulation of the Orlando of Ariosto, 
and the form and idea of Bacon's Essays were probably 
suggested to him by the Essays of Montaigne. 

Let us now briefly trace the progress, and describe the 
principal achievements, in poetry and in prose writing, 
during the period under consideration. 



Poets and Dramatists: — Spenser, Daniel, &c. ; Origin of 
the English Drama ; the Dramatic Unities ; Marlowe, 
Shakspeare, &c. 

Among the poets of the period Spenser holds the first 
rank. The appearance of his Shepherd's Calendar in 
1579 was considered by his contemporaries to form an 



ELIZABETHAN PEKIOD. 87 

epoch in English poetry. This poem is a pastoral in twelve 
eclogues, and was dedicated to his truly noble patron, Sir 
Philip Sidney. The allegorical narrative poem of the 
Faery Queen, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, was published 
in 1590 and 1596. The earlier portion of it was written 
in England before the death of Sidney, who is said to 
have given to the poet substantial marks of his admiration 
of the part submitted to him. The later cantos were 
written on his estate of Kilcolman, in the south of Ireland, 
granted to him by the Queen out of the forfeited lands of 
the Earl of Desmond. Of his other compositions the 
chief are The Tears of the Muses, The Ruins of Time, 
Mother Hubbard's Tale, and the Hymns to Heavenly Love 
and Heavenly Beauty. 

The poems of Shakspeare all fall within the early part 
of his life ; they were all composed before 1598. Writing 
in that year, Meres, in the Wits Treasury, says, — " As 
the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pytha- 
goras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous 
honey-tongued Shakspeare. Witness his ( Venus and Ado- 
nis ; ' his ' Lucrece ; ' his sugared sonnets among his 
private friends." These, together with such portions of 
the Passionate Pilgrim and the Lovers Complaint, as 
may have been his genuine composition, constitute the 
whole of Shakspeare's poems, as distinguished from his 
plays. 

Never was a circle of more richly-gifted spirits con- 
gregated in one city than the company of poets and play- 
wrights gathered round the court of London between 
1590 and 1610. ' From Kent came Samuel Chapman, the 
translator of Homer ; from Somersetshire the gentle and 
high-thoughted Daniel * ; Warwickshire sent Michael Dray- 
ton, author of the Poly-Olbion\J' and William Shakspeare; 

* Author of the Mitsophilus ; the Civil Wars, an epic in eight books, 
&c. 

f And of Nt/mphidia, or the Court of Fairy, the Zarons' Ware, &c. 

Q 4 



88 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Kaleigh — who shone in poetry as in everything else he 
attempted — came from Devonshire ; London itself was 
the birthplace of Lonne*, Spenser, and Jonson. All 
these great men, there is reason to believe, were familiarly 
acquainted, and in constant intercourse with one another ; 
but unhappily the age produced no Boswell ; and their 
table talk, brilliant as it must have been, was lost to 
posterity. One dim glimpse of one of its phases has been 
preserved in the well-known passage by Andrew Fuller, 
writing in 1662 : 

"Many were the wit combats between him and Ben 
Jonson. Which two I behold like a Spanish great gal- 
leon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like 
the former, was built far higher in learning ; solid, but 
slow in his performances. Shakspeare, with the English 
man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could 
turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of 
all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention. He 
died a.d. 1616, and was buried at Stratford-upon-Avon, 
the town of his nativity." 

Among the crowd of minor poets — not one of them 
without some merit — who graced this extraordinary pe- 
riod, we may single out the name of Southwell. Eobert 
Southwell was a native of Norfolk, and was sent by his 
zealous parents to be educated at the English college 
of Douay. Becoming a Jesuit, he returned to England 
as a missionary in 1 584, and continued for eight years to 
labour in that capacity. In 1592 he was arrested and 
thrown into prison, where he remained three years. 
There existed not the slightest ground for supposing that 
he was connected with any political movement; never- 
theless, he was condemned in 1595, and was hanged, 
drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. His well-known lines, 

* Author of Songs and Sonnets, Satires, Epistles, Epithalmia, See. 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 89 

Time goes by Turns, are to be found in nearly every col- 
lection of British poetry. 

What we have to say on the development of the drama 
'in this period may best be prefaced by a brief sketch 
of its rise and progress in the middle ages. The first 
dramas of any kind of which we hear in England were 
written in French, and composed by the clergy. They 
were called miracle plays or mysteries, because the sub- 
jects were taken from Holy Scripture, or from the lives of 
the saints. We hear of a play of this kind on the story 
of St. Catherine, as having been acted at Dunstable 
in the year 1119. The names of other mysteries are, The 
Fall of Man, The Death of Abel, Noah's Flood, Lazarus, 
and Pilate's Wife's Dream. The object of the clergy in 
sanctioning these plays clearly was — first, to bring home 
the mysteries of the faith to the heart and imagination of 
the mass of the people, to whom, as they could not read, 
these dramatic representations partially supplied the place 
of books ; secondly, to gratify, in an innocent and salutary 
manner, that love of recreation and amusement which is 
inherent in our nature. Celebrations of a similar kind 
are to this day regularly enacted among the Indians in 
Mexico on the great festivals. 

As works of art, these miracle plays were rude and 
ill arranged ; gradually they were, from the artistic point 
of view, improved upon. They were succeeded by " the 
morals, or moral plays, in which not a history, but an 
apologue, was represented, and in which the characters 
were all allegorical. The moral plays are traced back to 
the early part of the reign of Henry VI., and they appear 
to have gradually arisen out of the miracle plays, in 
which, of course, characters very nearly approaching in 
their nature to the impersonated vices and virtues of the 
new species of drama must have occasionally appeared. 
The Devil of the Miracles, for instance, would very 
naturally suggest the Vice of the Morals Nor did 



90 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

the moral plays altogether put down the miracle plays ; in 
many of the provincial towns, at least, the latter continued 
to be represented almost to as late a date as the former. 
Finally, by a process of natural transition, very similar 
to that by which the sacred and supernatural characters 
of the religious drama had been converted into the alle- 
gorical personifications of the moral plays, these last, 
gradually becoming less and less vague and shadowy, at 
length, about the middle of the sixteenth century, boldly 
assumed life and reality, giving birth to the first examples 
of regular tragedy and comedy." * 

This process of transition, however, was not effected 
wholly by slow change from within ; on the contrary, 
it was hastened and largely modified by important ex- 
ternal influences. The revival of ancient learning had 
made men familiar with the comedies of Plautus and 
Terence, and the tragedies of Seneca ; and in Italy, where 
the modern drama originated, the first plays were come- 
dies after the manner of Plautus. Two such comedies by 
Ariosto were acted about the year 1512. The earliest 
known English play, the Ralph Roister Doister of 
Nicholas Udall, one of the masters of Eton school, is ex- 
pressly said to have been modelled upon the comedies of 
Plautus and Terence. The exact date of this play is 
uncertain ; but it is known that it could not have been 
composed after the year 1551. It is in the Alexandrine 
rhyming metre, and, though the language is rough, is a 
work of considerable vigour. The earliest known tragedy, 
Gorboduc, otherwise entitled Ferrex and Porrex, was acted 
before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, in January, 1562. 
Its joint authorship is ascribed to Sackville, Lord Buck- 
hurst, and Thomas Norton, a Puritan clergyman. Blank 
verse appears in this drama for the first time, and is 
handled by its authors in a more free and masterly 

* Craik's Sketches of the History of English Literature, vol. iii. p. 17. 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 91 

manner than it had been by Surrey, its first introducer. 
The subject of Gorboduc, like that of King Lear, is 
taken from the fabulous British annals of Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, and the choice illustrates the intense fondness 
with which the English people, in the fervid temper of 
nationality which distinguished it in the sixteenth century, 
reverted to the events — real or supposititious — of its 
by-gone history. For it must be remembered that the 
veracity of GreofTrey, and the reality of King Brutus and 
his successors, were not suspected or impeached until the 
time of Milton. 

Sir Philip Sidney, in his Defence of Poesy, while 
praising Gorboduc for its " stately speeches and well- 
sounding phrases," censures it for its neglect of the 
dramatic unities. This, therefore, is the place to explain 
what those unities were, and how our early tragedians 
came to violate them. 

Aristotle, in his Treatise on Poetry, collects from the 
practice of the Greek dramatists certain rules of art, as 
necessary to be observed, in order that any tragedy may 
have its full effect upon the audience. The chief of 
these relates to the action represented, which, he says, 
must be one, complete, and important. This rule has 
been called the Unity of Action. He also says that 
tragedy " for the most part endeavours to conclude itself 
within one revolution of the sun, or nearly so." This 
rule, limiting the time during which the action repre- 
sented takes place to twenty-four hours, or thereabouts, 
has been called the Unity of Time. A third rule, not 
expressly mentioned by Aristotle, but nearly always ob- 
served by the Greek tragedians, requires that the entire 
action should be transacted in the same locality; this 
is called the Unity of Place. These three rules were 
carefully observed by the first Italian tragedians, Eucellai 
and Trissino ; and also in France, when the drama took 
root there. In Spain and in England they were ne- 



92 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

glected, and apparently for the same reason, — that both 
peoples were fervently national, and intensely self-con- 
scious; and, therefore, in order to gratify them, the 
drama tended to assume the historic form — a form 
which necessitates the violation of the unities. Got- 
bocluc is full of political allusions and illustrations of the 
present by the past ; — the personages in it are never 
tired of expatiating on the blessings of peace and a settled 
government, — on the Avickedness and folly of popular 
risings, and the evils of a doubtful succession. But to 
carry out these didactic aims not one action, but several, 
had to be dramatized, and these actions could not, of 
course, happen at the same time, nor in the same place. 
Marlowe, in his historical tragedy of Edward II "., and 
Shakspeare, in his ten historical plays, proceed upon this 
principle. Shakspeare, however, when he wrote to gratify 
his own taste rather than that of the public, so far showed 
his recognition of the soundness of the old classical rules, 
that in the best of his tragedies he carefully observed 
the unity of action, although he judged it expedient, per- 
haps with reference partly to the coarser perceptions of 
his audience, to sacrifice those lesser congruities of place 
and time which the sensitive Athenian taste demanded, 
to the requirements of a wider, though looser, conception 
of the ends of dramatic art. 

Christopher Marlowe, whose irregular life came to a 
premature and shameful close*, holds the highest place 
among English dramatists before Shakspeare. Yet his 
genius was as irregular, and almost as unsatisfactory, as 
his life. His Tragedy of Doctor Faustus observes no 
rules, and is full of absurdity, foulness, and inconsistency. 
Only two or three passages in it which are beautiful as 
poetry, the most remarkable being the closing scene before 
Faustus is carried off by the demons, have hitherto 

* He was killed in a tavern scuffle at the age of thirty-one. 



ELIZABETHAN PEEIOD. 93 

rescued it from oblivion. The fondness of the English 
for plots taken from the national history we have already 
noticed. In this play of Marlowe, we see another, and 
less creditable, popular taste catered for, — the prone- 
ness to dabble in magic and conjuring. Queen Elizabeth 
herself was a believer in magic, and patronised the cele- 
brated conjuror, John Dee, the English Paracelsus. 

William Shakspeare, the pride of English literature, 
and of all literature, quitted, before he was yet twenty, 
his native town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and, like many 
a young author since, threw himself into the varied world 
of London. He was already married to Ann Hathaway, 
a woman of his own rank, but seven years older than 
himself. We know next to nothing of his actual manner 
of life, either before or after this decisive step ; but it 
seems probable that his fellow-townsman, Richard Burbage, 
who was an actor in London at the time when Shakspeare 
arrived there, induced him to adopt the theatre as a voca- 
tion. The names of both appear on a certificate addressed 
to the Privy Council in 1589 by the sharers in the Black- 
friars Theatre. The signatures are sixteen in number, 
and Shakspeare's stands twelfth on the list; a position 
which seems to prove, both that he had prospered in the 
world, to be the part-owner of a theatre at all, and also 
that his share in the concern was as yet but that of a 
junior partner, recently admitted to the theatrical firm. 
It should be observed that all these sixteen persons were 
actors, — "Her Majesty's poor players," as they style 
themselves, — and that Shakspeare also wrote plays, thus 
combining three characters, which in modern times are 
usually separated. It was as if Lumley, Kemble, and 
Sheridan, were rolled into one. In the fourteen years 
between 1584 and 1598, Shakspeare had produced, if the 
passage in Meres' Wit's Trhasuvy may be trusted, at least 
thirteen plays (assuming Titus Andronicus, which is 
among those mentioned by Meres, to be really his), out of 



94 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

which six were comedies, and five, histories. Hamlet, in 
its original shape, appeared in 1 603 ; King Lear in 1 608 ; 
Macbeth and Othello, at whatever time they may have 
been written, were not published till after the author's 
death. The three Eoman plays, Julius Ccesar, Antony 
and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, are supposed by Mr. 
Knight, with much apparent probability, to have been 
written at Stratford, after Shakspeare's retirement from 
the stage. This retirement is conjectured by Mr. Knight 
to have taken place some seven or eight years before the 
poet's death. By that time Shakspeare had certainly 
amassed a considerable fortune ; for we find him making 
investments at various periods (extending over four years) 
in land, houses, and other property, at Stratford. Like 
Sir Walter Scott, he seems to have set before him, as the 
chief object of his ambition, to raise his name and family 
into importance in his native town, and to have kept this 
personal aim constantly in view, while writing works 
which will command to the remotest time the admiration 
of mankind. Shakspeare's will is dated March 25th, 1616 ; 
and in less than a month afterwards, on his birth-day, the 
23rd of April, he died. Of the special cause or circum- 
stances of his death, nothing is known with certainty. 
Mr. Ward, the vicar of Stratford, writing forty-six years 
after the event, says, — " Shakspeare, Drayton, and Ben 
Jonson, had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too 
hard, for Shakspeare died of a fever there contracted." 
The vicar's surmise — the words " it seems " show that it 
was no more — is uncharitable, and need not be adopted ; 
but no other trace of evidence has been met with on the 
subject. 

Shakspeare's plays are divided into three classes — Co- 
medies, Histories, and Tragedies. Of the first class it 
may be said, so immeasurably do they soar above any- 
thing in the shape of comedy which had been produced 
before, — that they are Shakspeare's creation, and that 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 95 

English comedy begins with him. The classical models 
which the author of Ralph Roister Doister so much affects, 
are, except in one instance, quite thrown aside by Shaks- 
peare. A careful examination of the Italian comedy of 
the sixteenth century would probably show that Shak- 
speare was indebted to it, more than to any other external 
source, for the spirit and mode of treatment of his co- 
medies. It is to be observed that the plots of six * out 
of his fourteen comedies are Italian, while only one — 
that of the Comedy of Errors, altered from the Mencechmi 
of Plautus, — is classical. Of the remaining seven co- 
medies, the plots of two — Midsummer-Nights Dream, 
and As You Like It, are from mediaeval sources ; that of 
Love's Labour Lost is apparently French ; that of the Two 
Gentlemen of Verona is Spanish ; that of the Merry Wives 
of Windsor is native English ; while that of the Winter's 
Tale (if not invented by Greene, on whose story of Pan- 
dosto it is founded) and that of the Tempest, are of 
unknown origin. Of the plots of Shakspeare's eleven 
tragedies, two {Romeo and Juliet and Othello) are Italian ; 
four (Timon of Athens and the three Eoman plays) classical; 
two {Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida) mediaeval ; and 
three [Cymbeline, King Lear, and Macbeth) are taken 
from the national history. Under this last, description 
fall, of course, the plots of Shakspeare's ten Histories, in 
which he does but follow in the track of the writers of Oor- 
boduc, and many other " Chronicle-histories." From this 
analysis it appears that all the antecedent elements of 
literature which have heretofore passed under review, 
except the ecclesiastical, furnished materials to the 
(< myriad-minded " Shakspeare. The legends of the 
British bards, derived through Greoffrey and Holinshed, 
are represented in Cymbeline and Lear ; the vigorous but 

* Taming of the Shrew (at least in part), Merchant rf Venice, All's Well 
that Ends Well, Much Ado about Nothing, Twelfth Night, Measure for 
Measure. 



96 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

irregular conceptions of the mediaeval poets and romancers 
in Midsummer-Nights Dream and Troilus ; the modern 
Italian literature in the Merchant of Venice, and many 
others — the recent revival of ancient learning in the 
Eoman plays, — lastly, the intense nationality of the 
period, and its historical studies, are represented in the 
noble series of dramas illustrative of England's story. 

Of the other dramatists of this Elizabethan period 
the chief were Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and 
Massinger. Jonson was in early youth a soldier, and 
served in the Low Countries ; but after the campaign was 
over he went upon the stage. His passionate and over- 
bearing temper constantly led him into quarrels, in one 
of which he had the misfortune to kill his antagonist, a 
brother-actor. For this he was imprisoned. Among his 
fellow-prisoners was a Catholic priest, intimacy with 
whom resulted in Jonson's conversion. He remained a 
Catholic — nominally, at least — for twelve years, and then 
returned to the established religion. He was a favourite 
with King James, who made him poet laureate. In 1619 
he visited the poet Drummond at his seat at Hawthornden, 
in Scotland ; and we have a curious account by Drum- 
mond of his conversation and behaviour during the visit. 
Jonson died in 1637, and was buried in Westminster 
Abbey ; upon his tombstone were inscribed these words 
only, " rare Ben Jonson." Of his extant plays ten 
are comedies, three comical satires, only two, besides a 
fragment of a third, tragedies, and about thirty-five, 
masques, or other court entertainments, — short pieces, 
in which, as to a yet greater extent in the modern 
opera, the words were of less importance than the 
music, decoration, dumb show, and other theatrical ac- 
cessories. Beaumont and Fletcher have left us about 
fifty-two plays, of which fourteen are certainly by 
Fletcher ; the remainder may be the joint production of 
the two. Of these, twenty-three are comedies, eighteen 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 97 

tragi-comedies, and nine tragedies. Of the plays of Philip 
Massinger seventeen are preserved; five tragedies, eight 
comedies, and four tragi-comedies. A tragi-comedy, as 
explained by Fletcher himself*, is a play which ends 
happily, yet in the course of which some of the principal 
personages are brought so near to destruction that the 
true tragic interest is excited. It is evident, therefore, 
that several of Shakspeare's comedies, such as the 
Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure, would, 
according to the nomenclature of Fletcher, be classed 
as traoi-comedies. 



Prose Writing : — Novels ; Essays ; Pamphlets ; Criticism. 

The prose literature of this period is not less abundant 
and various than the poetry. We meet now with novelists, 
pamphleteers, and essayists for the first time. Lodge 
wrote several novels, from one of which Shakspeare 
took the plot of As You Like It. Lyly published his 
Eujphues in 1578 ; and the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sid- 
ney appeared after the author's death in 1590. This 
tedious pastoral romance is the fruit of the revival of 
letters, and of the influence of Italian literature. It was 
evidently ( suggested by the Arcadia of Sanazzaro, a 
Neapolitan poet, who died in the year 1530. Now, too, the 
literature of travel and adventure, which began with 
old Sir John Mandevile, and has attained to such vast 
proportions among us in modern times, was placed on a 
broad and solid pedestal of recorded fact by the work of 
Eichard Hakluyt, a Herefordshire man, who in 1589 
published a collection of voyages made by Englishmen 
"at anytime," (as he states on the title page) "within the 
compass of these fifteen hundred years." Purchas' Pil- 
grim (1625) is another collection of the same kind. 

* See the passage in Craik, vol. iii. p. 201. 
H 



98 HISTOKY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

The genius of Montaigne raised up English imitators 
of his famous work, one of whom was afterwards to 
eclipse his original. Francis Bacon published a small 
volume, entitled Essayes, Religious lied it at ions, Places of 
Persivasion and Disswasion, in 1597. These were again 
published, with large additions, in 1612 ; and again, simi- 
larly augmented, in 1625, under the title of Essayes, 
or Counsels Civill and Moral. In the dedication to this 
last edition Lord Bacon writes, — "I do now publish 
my Essayes ; which of all my other workes have beene 
most currant; for that, as it seemes, they come home 
to men's businesse and bosomes. I have enlarged them 
both in number and weight, so that they are indeed a 
new work." The Essays in this their final shape were 
immediately translated into French, Italian, and Latin. 

A singular woik, difficult of classification, but which is 
more a collection of miscellaneous essays and detached 
thoughts than anything else, — the influence of Mon- 
taigne being plainly discernible throughout, — is Burton's 
Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621. Burton 
was an Oxford man, and his volumes, as Mr. Hallam 
remarks, may be described as a great sweeping of mis- 
cellaneous literature from the Bodleian library. 

Among the political writings of this period there is 
none more remarkable than Spenser's View of 'the State 
of Ireland, which, though written and presented to 
Elizabeth about the year 1596, was not published till 
1633. This work was the fruit of the poet's long sojourn 
in Ireland, first as secretary to the lord-deputy, Lord Grrey 
of Wilton, then in various other employments. It is the 
best political treatise that we have met with since the 
essay of the astute old lawyer, Sir John Fortescue. The 
pamphlets of the period are innumerable, and touch 
upon every conceivable public question. Those by Mar- 
tin Mar-prelate, the assumed name of a Puritan author, 
who endeavoured in a clumsy way to turn the Anglican 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 99 

episcopacy into ridicule, and the witty replies to them by 
Nash, are perhaps the most memorable. 

The deeper culture of the time displayed itself in the 
earliest attempts in our language at literary and aesthetic 
criticism. George Gascoyne, the poet, led the way with 
a short tract, entitled Notes of Instruction concerning 
the making of Verse or Rhyme in English: this appeared 
in 1575. But among all such works, Sir Philip Sidney's 
Defence of Poesy, written about 1584, stands pre- 
eminent. Chaucer's diction was antiquated' ; Surrey and 
Wyat were refined versifiers rather tham poets ; the sun 
of Spenser had but just risen; and, as people are apt to 
hold cheap that in which they do not excel,, it seems 
that the English literary public at this time were dis- 
posed to regard poetry as a frivolous and useless exercise of 
the mind, unworthy to engage the attention of those who 
could betake themselves to philosophy or history, A 
work embodying these opinions, entitled The School 
of Abuse, was written by Stephen Gosson in 1579, and 
dedicated to Sidney; and it seems not improbable that 
this work was the immediate occasion which called forth 
the Defence of Poesy. In this really noble and beau- 
tiful treatise, which moreover has the merit of being very 
short, Sir Philip seeks to recall his countrymen to a 
better mind, and vindicates the pre-eminence of the poet 
as a seer, a thinker, and a maker* 

It has been discovered* that from this period dates 
the first regular newspaper, though it did not as yet 
contain domestic intelligence. " The first news-pamphlet 
which came out at regular intervals appears to have 
been that entitled The News of the Present Week, 
edited by Nathaniel Butler, which was started in 1622, 
in the early days of the Thirty Years' War, and was 
continued in conformity with its title as a weekly 
publication." 

* Craik, vol. iv. p. 97. 



100 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Historians: — Holinshed; Bacon; Raleigh; Knolles. 

Turning from these miscellaneous productions, let us 
see what was achieved during this period in the historical 
field. 

The task of writing the national history fell into the 
hands of a series of plodding chroniclers (Grafton, Holin- 
shed, Stow, and Speed) who translated, compiled, or 
abridged the old Latin histories, adding for the later 
periods matter collected by their own researches, in 
respect of which they are to be considered as original 
and valuable authorities. The authors mentioned wrote 
between the years 1548 and 1614. Holinshed will long 
be remembered as the source whence Shakspeare drew the 
materials of many of his plays. He, in common with 
all our historians down to Milton, accepted as authentic 
the fabulous British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
and translated the greater part of it. It was thus that 
Shakspeare became acquainted with the stories of Lear 
and Cymbeline. The plot of Macbeth, and those of 
most of the historical plays, were in like manner derived 
from HoHnshed ; the other authorities being Hall's Chro- 
nicle, Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, and Foxe's Book of 
Martyrs, 

Lord Bacon published in 1622 a History of the Reign 
of Henry VII. His motive for choosing that particular 
reign was, if the somewhat fulsome dedication to Prince 
Charles may be trusted, " to do honour to the last king 
of England, that was ancestor to the king your father 
and yourself,"— Henry VII. having been the father of 
Margaret, wife of James IV. of Scotland, and great- 
grandmother to James I. 

The poet Daniel published in 1618 a History of Eng- 
land, commencing at the Conquest and ending with the 
reign of Edward III. The Annals of the reign of Eliza- 



ELIZABETHAN PEEIOD 101 

betli, by Camden, appeared in 1615. The famous de- 
scriptive work by the same author, entitled Britannia, 
appeared in its completed form in 1607. To this work, 
which was written in Latin, we are indebted for a vast 
amount of exact topographical and antiquarian informa- 
tion, throwing light on the physical and social condition 
of the country, which is nowhere else to be met with. 

Sir Walter Raleigh employed the years during which 
he lay in the prison to which the pusillanimous James 
had consigned him, in subservience to the dictation of 
Spain, in compiling, with the help of other scholars, a 
History of the World, from the creation to the fall of 
the Macedonian kingdom, B.C. 168. A remarkable ex- 
tract from this history will be found in the second part 
of the present work ; upon reference to which the reader 
will see how large a space the Turkish monarchy then 
engrossed in the politics of Europe, and will be prepared 
to find one of the most competent of English writers, early 
in the seventeenth century — Richard Knolles — taking 
for his subject the history of the Turks. For more than 
a hundred years after the fall of Constantinople (1453), 
the Turkish power continued to extend itself, until it 
threatened to absorb all the Sclavonic provinces of Eastern 
Europe. The victory of Lepanto in 1570 did indeed 
effectually arrest this progress ; but the Turk still con- 
tinued to be a formidable power, and was only reduced 
to the present helpless condition in which we see him by 
the victories of Prince Eugene in the early part of the 
eighteenth century. 



Theology: Puritan Writers: — Hooker; Donne; Allen; 
Parsons. 

The theological literature of the period arose, for the 
most part, out of the long campaign, offensive and defen- 

H 3 



102 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

sive, carried on by the divines of trie Church of England, 
as then recently established by act of parliament, against 
the Puritans. The latter were members of the esta- 
blishment ; for Protestant non-conformity had as yet no 
regular existence, — but they laboured incessantly to obtain 
a further " reform " of the new church in the direction 
taken by Calvin in his celebrated experiment at Geneva, 
in which city many of their leaders had found an asylum 
during the Marian persecution. The kneeling attitude at 
the communion-table, the sign of the cross used in bap- 
tism, the white surplice, which bore a suspicious resem- 
blance to the ancient alb, the ambiguous language of the 
liturgy, the organ music, the temporal power, above all, 
possessed by the bishops, — these and many more pecu- 
liarities, which either policy had retained, or inconsistency 
had overlooked, seemed to the Puritans to be intolerable 
abominations, the retention of which involved a national 
sin of the deepest dye. Cartwright, Travers, and Prynne 
were the chief writers of the party. Against them the 
Archbishops Parker, Whitgift, and Bancroft, though their 
ordinary arguments were the more forcible ones of depri- 
vation, fine, and imprisonment, did not disdain to defend 
in writing: also the cause of Anglicanism. But their most 
formidable opponent was Eichard Hooker. This distin- 
guished man, born near Exeter, and educated at Oxford, 
— a student profoundly learned, of ascetic habits and 
blameless life^ — held successively the livings of Boscom, in 
Wiltshire, and Bishopsbourne, in Kent. In 1594 he pub- 
lished the first part of his Book of Ecclesiastical Polity. 
The object of the work is to justify the ceremonies and 
ordinances of the Church of England against the charges 
of superstition and contrariety to Scripture with which the 
Puritans aspersed them ; and further, to show that the "godly 
discipline " of Presbyterianism insisted on by the party, 
though it might be a lawful form of church government, 
was not prescribed in Scripture as the only allowable form. 
The whole question is argued with great earnestness and 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 103 

carefulness of argument and fulness of detail. Indeed, it 
was but just that it should be so ; since the ultimatum 
addressed to the Puritans was not, as in these days of 
toleration, — " Be convinced, or else separate from us, 
and form a church of your own ; " but, — e( Be con- 
vinced, or else coerced ; since we will neither accept 
your discipline ourselves nor allow you to establish it 
independently." A work intended to reconcile men's 
minds to such an alternative had need to be carefully cal- 
culated to produce conviction. That the Puritans them- 
selves had no larger idea of toleration was proved by 
the persecution which they directed against the Quakers 
and others in New England, and also by the exterminat- 
ing haste with which they abolished the Church of Eng- 
land, root and branch, as soon as the course of the civil 
war left them free to do so. 

In the reign of James, Dr. Donne and Bishop Andrewes 
were the chief writers of the Episcopalian party. The 
reaction against the encroaching self-asserting spirit of 
Puritanism, joined to the perception that the contro- 
versy with the Catholics could not be carried on upon 
the narrow Puritan grounds, nor without reference to 
the past history of the Church, led back about this time 
the ablest and best men among the Anglican divines to 
the study of the primitive ages, and to research among the 
treasures of patristic lore. Donne, Andrewes, and Laud, 
as afterwards Bull, Pearson, Taylor, and Barrow, were 
deeply read in ecclesiastical literature. James I. prided 
himself on his theological profundity. His Basilicon 
Boron, or advice to his son Prince Henry, published 
in 1599, contains far more of theological argument 
than of moral counsel. His Apology for the Oath of 
Allegiance, written in 1605, to justify the imposition 
upon English Catholics of the new oaths framed after the 
discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, drew forth an answer 
from Bellarmine. 

H 4 



104 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Among the persecuted Catholics, the chief writers dur- 
ing this period were Cardinal Allen, and the Jesuit fathers, 
Parsons and Campion. Allen's eventful and laborious life 
throws a strong light on the condition of the English 
Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth. A native of 
Lancashire, he received his education at Oriel College, 
Oxford, and in the reign of Mary was appointed proctor 
of the University, and also canon of York. He boldly 
and vehemently resisted the change which ensued upon 
the accession of Elizabeth, and was soon therefore obliged 
to leave Oxford, and take refuge in the Netherlands. 
Returning secretly to England, he endeavoured to exercise 
his functions as a priest ; but after three years of constant 
peril, in which he assumed various disguises, shifted from 
place to place, and had several hairbreadth escapes, he 
retired again to the continent. The ancient institutions, 
founded by the Church in the middle ages for the educa- 
tion of the clergy, having been all diverted to the use of 
the establishment, Allen conceived the idea of founding 
an English college or seminary in the Spanish Netherlands ; 
and about the year 1562 he organized the English college 
at Douay. Suppressed by Eequesens, the Spanish governor, 
at the instigation of the English government, in 1578, the 
college was transferred by Allen to Rheims, where he 
presided over it for ten years, until in 1588 it was re- 
moved back to Douay. He died in 1594. 

Allen's writings — which deal with the intricate ques- 
tions that lie in the border-land between theology and 
politics — have rather a historical than a theological 
interest. His Apology or Defence of the Jesuits and 
Seminarists, written in 1582, was intended as a reply to 
the government proclamations, in which the Catholic 
clergy were held up as traitors. Parsons, a voluminous 
and able writer, entered into the controversy both on the 
doctrinal and on the practical side. 

Of the noble Edmund Campion, who suffered in 1581, 



ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 105 

we possess (besides a history of Ireland) only a few sermons 
and pamphlets. 



Philosophy : — Lord Bacon. 

The public teaching of philosophy at the universities 
differed little during this period from that which had 
prevailed before the change of religion. The ethics, logic, 
and physics of Aristotle were still taught at Oxford 
and Cambridge. Hobbes, of whom we shall have 
occasion to say more hereafter, tells us in his short 
autobiography that he spent most of his time at Oxford 
in studying the philosophy and logic of Aristotle, and 
that when he went to the continent soon after, and ex- 
hibited his attainments, he found himself only laughed at 
for his pains. The grand development of ethical philo- 
sophy, which in Spain was worked out about this time 
by Soto, Suarez, and Victoria, and which has been prac- 
tically illustrated — to take one striking instance — in the 
treatment of the negro race by the Spaniards, differing as 
it does so advantageously from the general behaviour of 
the Teutonic nations, could not, as being closely con- 
nected with Catholicity, find a counterpart in England. 
The new logical system of the Frenchman, Peter Eamus, 
though much talked of and much commended in Eng- 
land, does not appear to have in the slightest degree 
superseded that of Aristotle in the schools.* Physics 
and astronomy, which, in the hands of Kepler, Galileo, 
Grrassi, &c. were making 'towards the close of this period 

* Eamus seems to hare deserved the strong terms of censure -which 
Bacon uses of him, and to have been, in fact, little better than a charlatan. 
He ridiculed the syllogistic process on account of its cumbrousness and 
alleged inutility, and proposed to substitute a logic of common sense, such 
as good reasoners actually made use of in argument. As if Aristotle 
meant that every one must argue in syllogisms, and not merely to analyse 
the nature and form of intellectual conviction. 



106 HISTORY OF EXGLISH LITERATURE. 

such astonishing progress abroad, were not cultivated in 
England with any striking success until after the Ee- 
storation.* Yet in the history of philosophy this is the 
period of distinction for England above all others, for in 
it she produced the man who founded the new logic, the 
new method of investigating the truth of nature and of 
history, — Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. 

Bacon was born on the 22nd January, 1561, at his 
father's house in the Strand, London. Sir Nicholas 
Bacon was keeper of the Great Seal, and one of Eliza- 
beth's most trusted and valuable councillors, having been 
retained in office for twenty years up to the time of his 
death in 1579. Francis, the second son, was sent at a 
very early age to Trinity College, Cambridge, but left it 
at the ao-e of sixteen, without having taken a decree. 
Even while at the L T niversity he is said to have been dis- 
gusted with the dry Aristotelianism, which was the only 
philosophical food that the place afforded, and to have 
dreamed of a renovation and re-classification of the sciences. 
Being a younger son, he derived no benefit from the family 
estates of Grorhambmy and Kedgrave, and therefore 
commenced to study law at Gray's Inn. Through his 
brother's influence he was returned to the House of 
Commons, but failed to make that step the instrument of 
his advancement, as he had anticipated. In his em- 
barrassment he found a generous friend in the Earl of 
Essex, who bestowed upon him his domain of Twicken- 
ham. In this pleasant retreat, now consecrated to the 
memory of Pope, he composed his Essays. Under 
James I. he rapidly rose in his profession, until in 1618 
he was raised to the peerage and appointed Lord Chan- 
cellor. Three years afterwards he was impeached by the 

* In the department of pure mathematics, however, Napier, the inventor 
of logarithms, and his coadjutor or corrector, Briggs, fall within this 
period. The method of logarithms was first published at Edinburgh in 
1614. 






ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 107 

Parliament, and found guilty of having received presents 
from suitors in his court. He resigned the seals, and 
spent the remainder of his life in retirement at Grorham- 
bury, where he died in 1627. 

With regard to the Baconian philosophy, we shall here 
only attempt something like a circumstantial description of 
the works containing it. These are three in number, — the 
treatise on the Advancement of Learning, the Instan- 
ratio Magna, and the Be Augmentis Scientiarum. The 
first was composed in English, and first published in 1605. 
Its general object was to exhibit a survey of the whole 
field of human knowledge, showing its actual state in its 
various departments, and noting what parts had been 
cultivated, what were lying waste, without, however, 
entering upon the difficult inquiry as to erroneous 
methods of cultivation; his purpose in this work being 
only "to note omissions and deficiencies," with a view 
to their being made good by the labours of the learned. 

The Instauratio Magna, which, though in a most un- 
finished state, owing to the pressure of his public and 
active duties upon the writer, is the most important re- 
pository of the Baconian philosophy, appeared in 1620. 
It was written in Latin, dedicated to King James, and 
divided into six parts. Of five of these Bacon has given 
us little more than outline sketches, or tables of contents. 
The first part, Partitiories Scientiarum, was to be a 
general ground-plan of existing knowledge, noticing and 
sometimes supplying deficiencies. This is wanting, but 
its place is partly supplied by the Be Augmentis. 
The second part, the Novum Organum, the logic of 
the new inductive philosophy, is described by its author 
as "the science of a better and more perfect use of 
reason in the investigation of things, and of the true aids 
of the understanding." This part we have, though not. 
executed to the full extent of the design. The third 
part, Historia Xaturalis, was to be a description of 



108 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

universal nature. To this Bacon has contributed nothing 
but his Centuries of Natural History, containing- about 
one thousand observed facts and experiments. He reckons 
up one hundred and thirty particular histories which 
ought to be written for this work. Of the fourth part, 
Scala Intellectus, we have only a few introductory 
pages, which show that the design of this part was to 
illustrate the actual course of scientific inquiry, to trace 
the steps by which the mind proceeded in analytic inves- 
tigation. The fifth part is termed Prodromi sive Anti- 
cipationes Philosophice Secundce. Of this we have a few 
fragments, headed Cogitata et Visa, Fiium Labyrinthi, 
&c. The sixth part was to be the Phllosophia Se- 
cunda itself. "To perfect this last part," he says, "is 
above our powers and beyond our hopes. We may, as 
we trust, make no despicable beginnings ; the destinies of 
the human race must complete it, — in such a manner, 
perhaps, as men, looking only at the present, would 
not readily conceive." 

The Be Augmentls Scientiarum, which appeared in 
1623, is an enlarged and revised version in Latin — about 
one-third being new matter — of the treatise on the 
Advancement of Learning, 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 109 



CHAPTER IV. 

CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 
1625 — 1700. 

The literature of this period will be better understood 
after a brief explanation has been given of the poli- 
tical changes which attended the fall, restoration, - and 
ultimate expulsion of the Stuart dynasty. 

The Puritan party, whose proceedings and opinions in 
the two preceding reigns have been already noticed, 
continued to grow in importance, and demanded, with 
increasing loudness, a reform in the Church establish- 
ment* They were met at first by a bigotry at least equal, 
and a power superior, to their own. Archbishop Laud^ 
who presided in the High Commission Court *, had taken 
for his motto the word " thorough," and had persuaded 
himself that only by a system of severity could conform- 
ity to the established religion be enforced. Those who 
wrote against, or even impugned in conversation, the doc- 
trine, discipline, or government of the Church of Eng- 
land, were brought before the High Commission Court, 
and heavily fined ; and a repetition of the offence, par- 
ticularly if any expressions were used out of which a 
seditious meaning could be extracted, frequently led to 
an indictment of the offender in the Star Chamber f (in 
which also Laud had a seat), and to his imprisonment 

* Established by Queen Elizabeth to try ecclesiastical offences. 
f Established by Henry VII. in 1487. 



110 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and mutilation by order of that iniquitous tribunal. Thus 
Prynne a lawyer, Bastwick a physician, and Burton a 
clergyman, after having- run the gauntlet of the High 
Commission Court, and been there sentenced to suspen- 
sion from the practice of their professions, fined, im- 
prisoned, and excommunicated, were in 1632 summoned 
before the Star Chamber, and sentenced to. stand in the 
pillory, to lose their ears, and be imprisoned for life. 
In 1633 Leighton, father of the eminent Archbishop 
Leighton, was by the same court sentenced to be publicly 
whipped, to lose both ears, to have his nostrils slit, to 
be branded on both cheeks, and imprisoned for life. In 
all these cases the offence was of the same kind ; — the 
publication of some book or tract, generally couched, 
it must be admitted, in scurrilous and inflammatory lan- 
guage, assailing the government of the Church by bishops, 
or the Church liturgy and ceremonies, or some of the 
common popular amusements, such as dancing and play- 
going, to which these fanatics imputed most of the vice 
which corrupted society. 

To these ecclesiastical grievances Charles I. took care to 
add political. By his levies of ship-money, and of ton- 
nage and poundage, — by his stretches of the prerogative, 
— by his long delay in convoking the parliament, — and 
many other illegal or irritating proceedings, — he estranged 
from him all the leading politicians, — the Pirns, Hamp- 
dens, Seldens, and Hydes, — just as, by supporting Laud, 
he estranged the commercial and burgher classes, among 
whom Puritanism had its stronghold. In November, 
1640, the famous long parliament met; the quar- 
rel became too envenomed to be composed otherwise 
than by recourse to arms ; and in 1 642 the civil war 
broke out. In the following year, London being com- 
pletely in the power of the parliament, the Puritans 
were able to gratify their old grudge against the play- 
writers by closing all the theatres. Gradually the 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. Ill 

conduct of the war passed out of the hands of the more 
numerous section of the Puritan party — the Presby- 
terians — into those of a section hitherto obscure — - the 
Independents — who were supported by the genius of 
Milton and Cromwell. This sect originally bore the 
name of Brownists, from their founder, Eobert Browne 
(1549 — 1630) : they went beyond the moderate Puritans 
in regarding conformity to the establishment as a sin, 
and therefore forming, in defiance of the law, separate 
congregations. But their later writers, such as Milton 
and Owen, compensated for this indomitable sectarianism 
by maintaining the doctrine of toleration ; against the 
Presbyterians they argued that the civil magistrate had 
no right to force the consciences of individuals. They 
took care, indeed, to make one exception : the Catholic 
worship was by no means to be tolerated. " As for what 
you mention about liberty of conscience," said Cromwell 
to the delegates from Boss, " I meddle not with any 
man's conscience. But if by liberty of conscience you 
mean a liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best to use 
plain dealing, and to let you know, where the parliament 
of England have power, that will not be permitted." * 
Still it was a great thing to have the principle once 
boldly asserted and partially applied; for Catholics as 
well as others were sure to benefit sooner or later from 
its extension. 

In the civil war, the clergy, four-fifths of the aristo- 
cracy and landed gentry, with the rural population 
depending on them, and some few cities, adhered to the 
king. The Catholics joined him to a man. The poets, 
wits, and artists, between whom and Puritanism a kind of 
natural enmity subsisted, sought, with few exceptions, 
the royal camp, where they were probably more noisy 
than serviceable. On the other hand, the parliament 

* See Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell. 



112 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

was supported by the great middle class, and by the 
yeomen or small landed proprietors. It had at first but 
one poet (Wither was then a Eoyalist), but that one 
was John Milton. 

The king's cause became hopeless after the defeat of 
Naseby in 1645 ; and after a lengthened imprisonment he 
was brought to the block by the army and the Inde- 
pendents, ostensibly as a traitor and malefactor against 
his people ; really, because while he lived, the revolu- 
tionary leaders could never feel secure. There is a sig- 
nificant query in one of Cromwell's letters, written in 
1648, "whether ' Salus populi summa lex,' be not a 
sound maxim." 

But before the fatal window in Whitehall the reaction 
in the public sentiment and conscience commenced. Crom- 
well, indeed, carried on the government with consummate 
ability and vigour ; but after all he represented only his 
own stern genius, and the victorious army which he had 
created; and when he died — and in the rivalries of his 
generals the power of that army was neutralised — Eng- 
land, by a kind of irresistible gravitation, returned to 
that position of defined and prescriptive freedom which 
had been elaborated during the long course of the middle 
ages. 

At the Eestoration (1660), the courtiers, wits, and 
poets returned from exile, not uninfluenced, whether for 
good or evil, by their long sojourn abroad; the Anglican 
clergy saw their church established on a firmer footing 
than ever; and their Puritan adversaries, ejected and 
silenced, passed below the surface of society, and secretly 
organized the earlier varieties of that many-headed British 
dissent which now numbers half the people of England 
among its adherents. The theatres were re-opened ; and 
every loyal subject — to prove himself no Puritan — tried 
to be as wild, reckless, and dissolute as possible. Yet in 
the course of years the defeated party, with changed 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 113 

tactics indeed, and in a sober mood, began to make itself 
felt. Instead of asking for a theocracy, they now agi- 
tated for toleration ; and, renouncing their republicanism 
as impracticable, they took up the watchword of con- 
stitutional reform. The Puritans and Soundheads of the 
civil war reappear towards the close of Charles II.'s reign 
under the more permanent appellation of tJce Whig 
party. 

One of the points in which the party was found least 
altered after its transformation was its bitter and tradi- 
tional hostility to CathoHcism. Hence, after it became 
known that the heir-presumptive to the crown, James 
Duke of York, had become a Catholic, the Whigs formed 
the design of excluding him on that ground from the 
throne, and placing the crown upon the head of the next 
Protestant heir. The party of the Court and the cavaliers, 
(who began about this time to be called Tories) vigorously 
opposed the scheme, and with success. James II. suc- 
ceeded in 1685, and immediately began to take measures 
for the relief of Catholics from the many disabilities under 
which they laboured. 

Here we may take a hasty view of the history of Catho- 
licism in England since 1625. Charles I., who had mar- 
ried a French princess, and was attached to that Anglican 
school which approached the nearest to Eome, was per- 
sonally inclined to screen the oppressed Catholics from 
persecution ; when he did sacrifice them, it was merely to 
save himself, or to escape the odious imputation of favour- 
ing them. Accordingly, it does not appear that more 
than twenty-one priests (regular and secular) were put 
to death for their religion during this reign.* Among 
them were Father Arrowsmith, and Barlow the Benedic- 
tine. Owing to the comparative connivance which it 
received, Catholicity made progress, and made many 

* Flanagan's Church History, vol. ii. pp. 311 — 334. 
I 



114 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

converts. Milton alludes to this in the Lycidas*, writ- 
ten in 1637. Their loyalty to the king of course brought 
down upon the whole body the persecuting fury of the 
Parliament. Two-thirds of the estates of all Papists were 
sequestered; new oaths were invented to entangle and 
ruin them ; and old penal laws were carried into vigorous 
execution. Cromwell carried on the same system. Under 
Charles II., though the laws were not altered, they were 
seldom rigorously enforced until the time of the so-called 
Popish plot of 1680. Twenty-three Catholics were then 
put to death, because the English people were smitten 
with a panic, and fear made it cruel. Of these, six were 
laymen, including the venerable Lord Stafford, eight were 
Jesuits, and eight secular priests. The last and noblest 
victim was Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh. 

James pursued his object with all the indiscretion and 
unfairness habitual to his family. Though the Whigs had 
been defeated and cowed, — though the great majority of 
the nation desired to be loyal, — though the Anglican clergy 
in particular had committed themselves irrevocably to 
the position that a king ought to be obeyed, no matter 
to what lengths he might go in tyranny, — he so managed 
matters as almost to compel the divines to eat their own 
words, and, by forfeiting the affection and confidence of 
the people, to throw the game into the hands of the 
Whigs. The revolution came; James II. was expelled; 
the Act of Settlement was passed ; and the Catholics of 
England again became an obscure and persecuted mino- 
rity, which for a hundred years almost disappears from 
the public gaze and from the page of history. 

Under William III., from 1688 to 1700, there was a 
lull, comparatively speaking, in political affairs. The 
Toleration Act, passed in 1689, amounted to a formal re- 
nunciation of the claim of the State — on account of which 

* " Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said." 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 115 

so much blood had been shed in this and the previous 
century — to impose religious uniformity upon its subjects. 
Catholics were indeed excepted from its operation ; but 
the habit of thought which the Act was significative of 
and tended to produce, was certain in the end to demand 
the rectification of this inconsistency. Towards the mid- 
dle of William's reign the Tories began to recover from 
the stunning effects of the moral shock which they had 
sustained at the Eevolution ; and the modern system of 
parliamentary government, though complicated for a time 
by the question of Jacobitism, began to develop its out- 
lines out of the strife of the opposing parties. 

Having thus reviewed the course of events, we proceed 
to describe the development of ideas, as expressed in 
literature, during the same period. 



Poetry : — The Fantastic School ; Cowley, Crashaw, &c. ; 
Milton; Bryden; Butler. 

The Court still, as in the days of Elizabeth, opened 
its gates gladly to the poets and play-wrights. Jon- 
son's chief literary employment during his later years was 
the composition of masques for the entertainment of the 
king and royal family. That quarrelsome, reckless, in- 
temperate man, whose pedantry must have been insuffer- 
able to his contemporaries had it not been relieved by 
such flashes of wit, such a flow of graceful simple feeling, 
outlived by many years the friends of his youth, and 
died, almost an old man, in 1637. His beautiful pastoral 
drama of the Sad Shepherd was left unfinished at his 
death. 

The younger race of poets belonged nearly all to what 
has been termed by Dryden and Johnson the Metaphysical 
school, the founder of which in England was Donne. But 
in fact this style of writing was of Italian parentage, and 

I 2 



116 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

was brought in by the Neapolitan Marini.* Tired of 
the endless imitations of the ancients, which, except when 
a great genius like that of Tasso broke through all con- 
ventional rules, had ever since the revival of learning- 
fettered the poetic taste of Italy, Marini resolved to 
launch out boldly in a new career of invention, and to 
give to the world whatever his keen wit and lively fancy 
might prompt to him. He is described by Sismondi f as 
" the celebrated innovator on classic Italian taste, who 
first seduced the poets of the seventeenth century into 
that laboured and affected style which his own richness 
and vivacity of imagination were so well calculated to 
recommend. The most whimsical comparisons, pompous 
and overwrought descriptions, with a species of poetical 
punning and research, were soon esteemed, under his 
authority, as beauties of the very first order." Marini 
resided for some years in France, and it was in that 
country that he produced his Adone. His influence upon 
French poetry was as great as upon Italian, but the 
vigour and freedom which it communicated were perhaps 
more than counterbalanced by the glaring bad taste which 
it encouraged. The same may be said of his influence 
upon our own poets. Milton alone had too much origi- 
nality and inherent force to be carried away in the 
stream; but the most popular poets of the day, — Donne, 
Cowley, Crashaw, Waller, Cleveland, and even Dryden in 
his earlier efforts — gave in to the prevailing fashion, and, 
instead of simple, natural images, studded their poems 
with conceits (concetti). This explains why Cowley was 
rated by his contemporaries as the greatest poet of his 
day, since every age has its favourite fashions, in litera- 
ture as in costume ; and those who conform to them 
receive more praise than those who assert their indepen- 

* Born 1569, died 1625; author of the Adone and the Sospetto di 
Her ode. 

t Literature of the South of Europe (Roscoe), vol. ii. p. 262. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 117 

dence. Thus Clarendon* speaks of Cowley as having 
" made a flight beyond all men." A few specimens will, 
however, better illustrate the Metaphysical, or, as we 
should prefer to term it, the Fantastic school, than pages 
of explanation. The first is from Donne's metrical epis- 
tles : describing a sea- voyage, he says : — 

" There note they the ship's sicknesses, — the mast 
Shaked with an ague, and the hold and waist 
With a salt dropsy clogged ; " 

Cleveland compares the stopping of a fountain to a change 
in the devolution of an estate : 

"As an obstructed fountain's head 

Cuts the entail off from the streams, 
And brooks are disinherited; 

Honour and beauty are mere dreams, 
Since Charles and Mary lost their beams." 

Cowley talks of a trembling sky and a startled sun : in 
the Davideis, Envy thus addresses Lucifer : — 

"Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply, 
And thunder echo to the trembling sky; 
Whilst raging seas swell to so bold a height, 
As shall the fire's proud element affright. 
Th' old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way, 
Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day," &c. 

Dryden, in his youthful elegy on Lord Hastings, who 
died of the small-pox, describes that malady under various 
figures : — 

" Blisters with pride swelled, which through 's flesh did sprout 
Like rose-buds, stuck in the lily-skin about. 
Each little pimple had a tear in it, 
To wail the fault its rising did commit. 

To such a pitch of extravagance did talented men 
proceed in their endeavour to write in the fashion, in 
their straining after the much-admired conceits ! 

■ * Autobiography, vol. i. p. 30. 
I 3 



118 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Of Donne, who died in 1631, we have already spoken.* 
The other poets just mentioned of the Fantastic school, 
namely Cowley, Crashaw, Waller, and Cleveland, together 
with Thomas Carew, Eobert Herrick, Sir John Suckling, 
Eichard Lovelace, Greorge Herbert, Sir John Denham, 
and Francis Quarles, were all ardent royalists. Cowley, 
like Horace driven from Athens, — 

"Dura sed emovere loco me tempora grato," 

was dislodged from both Universities, in turn, by the vic- 
torious arms of the Parliament, and, attaching himself 
to the suite of Henrietta Maria, was employed by her at 
Paris for many years as a confidential secretary. After 
his return to England in 1656, he published his entire 
poems, consisting of Miscellanies, Anacreontics, Pindaric 
Odes, the Mistress, and the Davideis, The Pindaric Odes, 
written in irregular metres, and abounding in daring 
flights, some of which were happy strokes of wit, others 
extravagant instances of bad taste, were probably suggested 
by the odes of Chiabrera.| The Mistress is a collection of 
love-poems, in which fancy much predominates over feel- 
ing. The Davideis is an unfinished epic in four books, 
written while Cowley was at Cambridge. The choice of a 
sacred subject is not unlikely to have been suggested by 
the then popular epic of Dubartas J on the Creation. 

Eichard Crashaw was, like Cowley, ejected from the 
University of Cambridge by the Puritans, and deprived 
of his fellowship. He became a Catholic, and, after 
suffering great hardships from poverty at Paris, was dis- 
covered and generously aided by his friend Cowley. He 
died at Loretto in 1650, and was mourned by Cowley in 
one of the most moving and beautiful elegies ever writ- 
ten. Besides writing many miscellaneous pieces, he 

* See pp. £ 8 and 103. f Born 1552, died 1637. 

I Born 1544, died 1590. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 119 

translated the Sospetto di Herode of Marini. The un- 
equal texture of his poetry, and his predilection for 
conceits, have in his case also greatly dimmed a poetical 
reputation, which force of thought and depth of feeling- 
might otherwise have rendered a very high one. 

Waller, Carew, Herrick, Suckling, and Lovelace, may 
be described as song-writers rather than as poets. Waller 
was considered by his contemporaries and immediate suc- 
cessors as having been eminently instrumental in improv- 
ing the language and rhythm of poetry. Dryden calls 
him " the father of our English numbers ; had he not 
written, none of us could write." Although this has been 
disputed, it is probable that Dryden did not speak at 
random ; and that Waller, who was a man of great 
shrewdness and knowledge of the world, early learned to 
emancipate himself from the prevailing affectation and 
pedantry, and to speak in his poems the same simple 
direct language which was current in good societv. This 
is also true of much of Carew's poetry, but he wrote so 
little that his influence upon style cannot be compared 
to Waller's. Milton always lived the life of a retired 
student, and, even in his latest works, writes like one ; 
his barbarous Latinisms will be noticed in a future 
chapter. It is therefore quite intelligible that, while 
exercising great influence on thought, he should have 
exercised less influence on style than a man like Waller. 
Dryden himself, however, is the grand point of transition 
from Elizabethan to modern English. 

Some of the songs of this period seem to be destined 
tOj and may be held to deserve, as enduring a fame as 
those of Beranger. Such are Waller's " Gro, lovely rose," 
Carew's " He that loves a rosy cheek," Lovelace's song 
" To Althea, from prison," Wither's u Shall I, wasting 
in despair," and many more. Never before or since has 
English life so blossomed into song. Scotland has since 
had her Burns, and Ireland her Moore, but to find the 

I 4 



120 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

English chanson in perfection we must go back to the 
seventeenth century. 

Only three poets took the Puritan side ; but quality 
made up for quantity. John Milton was born in London 
in the year 1608. At sixteen he was sent to Cambridge, 
where he speedily gave proofs of an astonishing vigour 
and versatility of intellect by the Latin and English com- 
positions, chiefly the former, which he produced in his 
college years. In spite of the precedents given by the 
great Italian poets, Latin was still regarded as the uni- 
versal and most perfect language, not only for prose, but 
for poetry ; and the most gifted poets of the time, Milton 
and Cowley, followed the example of Vida and Sanazzaro 
and tried their " 'prentice hand " upon hexameters and 
elegiacs. In these exercises, whatever Dr. Johnson* may 
say, Milton was . singularly successful. So far from his 
Latin poems being inferior to those of Cowley, it may be 
doubted whether he does not surpass even Yida ; for if the 
latter excels him in elegance and smoothness, yet in the 
rush of images and ideas, in idiomatic strength and 
variety, in everything, in short, that constitutes originality, 
he is not to be compared to Milton. The elegy upon 
Bishop Andrewes is really a marvel, considering that it 
was the work of a lad of seventeen. 

Milton, however, was a true lover of his native lan- 
guage, and in his Latin pieces he was but, as it were, 
preluding and trying his poetic gift, the full power of 
which was to be displayed in the forms of his own 
mother tongue. But he would write simple, unaffected 
English, and be the slave to no fashionable style ; what- 
ever mannerism he was afterwards to give way to, was 
to be the offspring of his own studies and peculiar mode 
of thought. He expresses this determination in a Vaca- 

* In his Life of Milton. Johnson writes with an evident bias of dislike, 
which sometimes makes him unfair. His Tory prejudices would not allow 
him to he just to the poet who had defended regicide. 



CIVIL WAK PEEIOD. 121 

tion exercise, composed in 1627. Apostrophizing Ms 
native language, he says : - — 

"But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure, 
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure ; 
Xot those new-fangled toys, and trimming sleight, 
Which takes our late fantastics with delight; 
But call those richest robes, and gay'st attire, 
"Which deepest spirits and choicest wits desire." 

The English language obeyed the invitation, and two 
years later appeared the beautiful Ode to the Nativity. 
In 1634 he wrote the masque of Comus. All the rest 
of the shorter poems (except the Sonnets and two or 
three Latin pieces) were in like manner composed before 
the breaking out of the civil war. In 1638 Milton 
visited Italy, and stayed several months at Florence, 
Kome, and Naples, mixing familiarly in the literary society 
of those cities. The Italians were amazed at this prodigy 
of genius from the remote North, the beauty and grace of 
whose person recommended his intellectual gifts. The 
Marquis Manso, the friend of Tasso, said, referring to 
the well-known anecdote of Pope Gregory, that if his 
religion were as good as his other qualifications, he would 
be, " non Anglus verum Angelus." Selvaggi, in a Latin 
distich, anticipated the famous encomium of Dryden*, 
and Salsilli declared that the banks of the Thames had 
produced a greater poet than those of the Mincio. With 
Gralileo he had an interview at Florence. " There was 
it that I found and visited the famous Gralileo, grown old, 
a prisoner to the Inquisition." f The news of the increas- 
ing civil dissensions at home recalled him to England ; 
and after his return he renounced the Muse, and flung 
himself with characteristic energy into the thickest of 
the strife. The Puritans, who as a class possessed little 
learning, were at that time hard pushed by Bishop Hall, 

* " Three poets, in three distant ages born, ; ' &c. f Areopagitica. 



122 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Usher, and other Episcopalian disputants; when Milton 
appeared in their ranks, and threw not only the force 
and fire of his genius, but his varied and copious learn- 
ing, on the yielding side. Of Reformation in England 
(1641), An Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), the 
Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty 
(1641), these are the titles of some of his principal con- 
tributions to this controversy. Barren as was the strife, 
so far as regards any theoretical results directly estab- 
lished by it, yet whoever wishes to understand and feel 
the greatness of Milton, must not fail to study these 
treatises. His prose was no " cool element ; " most often 
it sparkles and scathes like liquid metal, yet softens here 
and there, and spreads out into calmer, milder passages, 
stamped with an inexpressible poetic loveliness. For 
many years, in this portion of his life, Milton gave him- 
self up to political and religious controversy ; all but one 
of his prose works were composed between 1640 and the 
Restoration. 

Writing of the sonnet, Wordsworth finely says, that in 
Milton's hand, — • 

" The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
Soul-animating strains, alas ! too few." 

Some of these stirring sonnets were composed during 
the war. That addressed to Cromwell was written before 
the battle of Worcester, in 1651, but corrected after it, as 
appears from an inspection of the original MS. in the 
library of Trinity College, Cambridge, in which the ninth 
line originally stood thus, — 

" And twenty battles more. Yet much remains," &c. 

But the pen has been drawn through the first four 
words, and over them is written " And Worcester's laureat 
wreath;" and thus the line stands in all the printed 
editions. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 123 

After the king's execution, Milton entered the service 
of the republican government as Latin secretary, with 
the duty of conducting the official correspondence with 
foreign powers. He retained this office under the Pro- 
tectorate. At the Restoration an order was given for his 
prosecution, but ultimately he was allowed to retire un- 
harmed into private life. At this time he was totally 
blind, having lost his eyesight, — 

" over-plied 
In Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
Wherewith all Europe rings from side to side : " 

where he refers to his Defensio Populi Anglicani, 
written in 1651 in reply to Salmasius. After his re- 
tirement, he lived at Bunhill Fields, in the outskirts of 
London, and took up again the cherished literary ambi- 
tion of his youth, which had been to write a great 
poem, founded either upon the national mythology, or on 
some scriptural subject. There are several allusions to 
this early bias of his mind in the prose works. Thus, 
in the Animadversions, &c, published in 1641, he 
writes : " And he that now for haste snatches up a plain 
ungarnished present as a thank-offering to Thee, may 
then, perhaps, take up a harp and sing Thee an elaborate 
song to generations." Also, [in the Reason of Church 
Government, &c., published in the same year, after 
mentioning the encouragement and praise which the 
Italian literati had given to his early efforts in verse, 
"I began," he says, "thus far to assent both to them 
and divers of my friends here at home, and not less to an 
inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that 
by labour and intense study (which I take to be my por- 
tion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of 
nature, I might, perhaps, leave something so written to 
after times as they should not willingly let it die." The 
whole context of this passage is of great interest for the 
light it throws on Milton's early conviction of the true 



-> 



124 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

nature of the task to which his extraordinary powers 
constituted his vocation. 

The Paradise Lost was first published in 1667. 
Although the author — from what cause is unknown 
— obtained a very scanty remuneration * from the pub- 
Hsher, the common supposition, that the sale of the 
work was extremely slow, is erroneous. Within two 
years from the date of publication thirteen hundred copies 
had been sold, and the second edition was exhausted 
before 1678. But the name of Milton was too hateful 
in royalist ears to allow of his admirers giving public 
expression to their feelings under the Stuarts. Addison's 
papers in the Spectator first made the Paradise Lost 
known to a large number of readers, and established it as 
a household book and an English classic. 

The Paradise Regained, in four books, and the sacred 
drama of Samson Agonistes, were both published in 
1670. Milton died in 1674, and was buried in the church 
of St. Cfiles, Cripplegate. 

Greorge Wither, the second Puritan poet, was a native 
of Hampshire, and sold his paternal property to raise a 
troop of horse for the Parliament. The diction of his 
earlier poems, particularly his beautiful songs, shows little 
trace of the influence of the Fantastic school; but his 
religious poetry is full of quaintnesses and conceits. The 
third poet, Andrew Marvell, who was assistant to Milton 
for eighteen months in the office of Latin secretary, 
and represented the borough of Hull in Parliament after 
the Eestoration, was at heart a thorough republican. 
He was a formidable political satirist, both in prose and 
verse, on the Whig-Puritan side, during the reign of 
Charles II. His miscellaneous poems, few in number, 
but natural and often graceful, were published by his 
widow in 1681. 

* Fifteen pounds for the first two editions, numbering three thousand 
Copies. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 125 

The poetry of Milton belongs, according' to its spirit, to 
the period before the Restoration, although much of it 
was actually composed later. The poets whom we have 
now to consider belong, both in time and in spirit, to the 
post-Restoration, or re-actionary school. The greatest of 
them — Dryden — is by far the most prominent figure 
in the literary history of the latter part of the seventeenth 
century ; and in describing his career, it will be easy to 
introduce such mention of his less-gifted rivals and con- 
temporaries as our limits will permit us to make. 

Dryden was the grandson of a Northamptonshire 
baronet and squire, Sir Erasmus Dryden, of Canons Ash- 
by; but his relations on both sides had adopted Puritan 
opinions, and he grew up to manhood under Puritan 
influences. From Westminster school he proceeded, in 
1650, to Trinity College, Cambridge. The seven years of 
his college life are almost a blank in his history. Of 
Milton we know exactly, from his own pen, how he was 
employed at the corresponding period ; and can form to 
ourselves a tolerably accurate notion of the earnest ascetic 
student, with his rapt look and beautiful features, walk- 
ing in the cloisters or garden of Christ's College. But 
of Dryden, the only fact of any importance that we know 
is, that his favourite study at this time was history, not 
poetry. He had begun, indeed, to string rhymes together 
many years before, his elegy on Lord Hastings having 
been written in 1649; but that feeble and artificial pro- 
duction must have given so little satisfaction, either to 
himself or others, that we cannot wonder at his having 
desisted from writing poetry altogether. How unlike 
Pope, who — 

" Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 

In 1657 he came up to London, probably at the invita- 
tion of his kinsman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, who stood high 
in the favour of Cromwell, being, according to Shadwell, 



126 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE, 

"Noll's Lord Chamberlain." Dryden seems to have 
acted as secretary or amanuensis to Sir Gilbert for about 
two years. Upon the death of Cromwell, in September, 
1658, he wrote an elegy, in thirty-six stanzas, comme- 
morating the exploits and great qualities of the Lord 
Protector. It is written in a manly strain, nor is the 
eulogy undiscerning. For example, — 

u For from all tempers he could service draw; 
The worth of each, with its alloy, he knew ; 
And as the confidant of Nature, saw 

How she complexions did divide and brew," — 

lines which well describe Cromwell's keen discernment 
of character. At the Eestoration, the cavaliers of course 
came into power, and the Puritan holders of office were 
ousted. Among the rest, Sir Gilbert Pickering had to 
retire into private life, happy to be let off so easily ; and 
Dryden's regular occupation was gone. At the age of 
twenty-eight he was thrown entirely on his own re- 
sources. Exactly twenty-eight years later the same mis- 
chance befel him ; and on each evasion the largeness and 
vigour of his intellect enabled him to make head against 
the spite of fortune. Literature was to be his resource ; 
the strong impulse of nature urged him with irresistible 
force to think and to write. But no kind of writing 
offered the chance of an immediate return, in the shape 
of temporal maintenance, except the dramatic. To the 
drama, therefore, Dryden turned, and began to write 
plays. Between 1662 and 1694 he produced twenty-six 
plays, of which twelve were tragedies, three tragi-comedies, 
nine comedies, and two operas. Perhaps his fame would 
have suffered but little if he had not written one. Many 
of them are crammed full — all are more or less tainted 
— with licentious language and gross allusion ; and even 
in the finest of the tragedies, one misses altogether that 
deep pathos which forms the inexhaustible charm of 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 127 

Othello or of (Edipus Tyrannus, and which Dryden had 
not heart enough to communicate to his work. 

In 1670 Dryden was appointed poet-laureate, in suc- 
cession to Sir William Davenant, with a salary of £200. 
a year, raised towards the end of Charles II.'s reign to 
£300. During the ten following years he was almost 
exclusively engaged in writing either plays, or critical 
essavs on dramatic subjects. His acknowledged superi- 
ority among men of letters, and the dread of his satire, 
caused him to be both envied and hated; passions which 
in those turbulent times did not trust to the pen alone 
for their gratification. Dryden received the same sort of 
castigation which Pope narrowly escaped, and which 
Voltaire met with, at the hands of the Due de Eohan. 
The clever, profligate \Yilmot, Earl of Rochester, who 
wished to be considered an arbiter of literary taste, had 
set up bv turns three dramatists — Settle, Crowne, and 
Otway, — as rivals to Dryden. But, finding that the 
judgment of the public remained intractable, he attacked 
Dryden himself in an imitation of Horace, published in 
1678. The poet replied vigorously in the preface to 
All for Love. Xext year appeared Sheffield's Essay 
on Satire, in which Rochester was severely handled. 
Supposing Dryden to be the author, Rochester had him 
waylaid, one evening near Covent Garden, on his return 
home from Wills's coffee-house, and severely beaten by a 
couple of hired bullies. In reference to which mishap, 
Lord Sheffield wrote the following stupid and conceited 
couplet, — 

' ; Though, praised and punished for another's rhymes, 
His own deserve as much applause sometimes" 

In the thick of the excitement about the Popish Plot, 
Dryden, by producing his play of the Spanish Friar, 

and thus pandering to the blind frenzy of the hour, placed 
himself almost in a position of antagonism to the Court, 



128 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

since the Whig promoters of the Plot were as little ac- 
ceptable to Charles as to his brother. But he soon 
after made ample amends by writing Absalom and 
Achitophel, the most perfect and powerful satire in our 
language, — in which the schemes of the Whig-Puritan 
party, and the characters of its leading men, are exposed 
and caricatured. 

In 1682 appeared the Medal, another satire on the 
Whigs, and a few months later the second part of Absa- 
lom and Achitophel, of which only about two hundred 
lines, including the portraits of Settle and Shadwell, are 
by Dryden, the rest being the work of an inferior poet, 
named Nahum Tate, — one of those jackals that hunt 
with the lions of literature, — but bearing marks of con- 
siderable revision by the master's hand. The Religio 
Laid, published in the same year, will be spoken of 
presently. 

In February 1685, Charles II. died. Dryden, as in 
duty bound, mourned the sad event in the Threnodia 
Augustalis, a long rambling elegy, in which occur a few 
fine lines, but which must be set down on the whole as 
mendacious, frigid, and profane. Lamentation is not the 
key-note of the poem ; — after bewailing the deprivation 
of so much virtue and benevolence which the world 
had sustained in the death of Charles II., the poet turns 
with alacrity to celebrate with an Io Paean the accession 
of the illustrious James. 

We are now come to the period of his life at which 
Dryden changed his religion. Upon this much-de- 
bated subject, the reader is referred to the candid 
examination of the entire question, which will be found 
in Sir Walter Scott's life of the poet. Scott's theory is, 
that on the one hand the inner workings of the poet's mind, 
as inferred from his writings, at last consistently brought 
him to embrace the Catholic system ; on the other hand, 
that there were many external incidents and circumstances 



CIVIL WAE PERIOD. 129 

in his position, which, in a proportion impossible to be 
exactly ascertained, co-operated with those internal move- 
ments to produce the final result. With regard to the 
first point, he quotes the poet's own confession in the 
Hind and Panther : — 

" My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires ; 
My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, 
Followed false lights ; and when their glimpse was gone, 
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. 
Such was I ; such by nature still I am ; 
Be Thine the glory, and be mine the shame ! " 

The " false lights " evidently refer to the Puritan 
opinions in which Dryden had been bred up, and the 
" sparkles " struck out by his pride as clearly point to 
the religious speculations, originating in his own mind, 
some of which are disclosed in the Religio Laid. This 
poem, one of the few of Dryden's which were neither writ- 
ten professionally, nor dedicated to, or suggested by, a 
patron, betokens a mind dissatisfied with the religion in 
which it had been brought up, and groping its way 
among clashing systems, in vain endeavours after light. 
To one whose opinions were so unfixed, who lived, too, at 
the time when the great Bossuet was analysing the 
Variations of the Protestant Churches, and the virtues 
of Fenelon were the talk of Europe, it is easy to see that 
when the time came at which it was his manifest interest 
to consider the claims of the religion of the Court, the 
arguments in favour of Catholicism would present them- 
selves with more than ordinary force, because they would 
not find the ordinary obstacles pre-existing in his mind. 
The whole subject cannot be better summed up than in 
the words of Scott : " While pointing out circumstances of 
proof that Dryden's conversion was not made by manner 
of bargain and sale, but proceeded upon a sincere" 
(he adds, " though erroneous ") " conviction, it cannot 
be denied that his situation as poet-laureate, and his 



130 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

expectations from the king, must have conduced to his 
taking his final resolution. All I mean to infer from the 
above statement is, that his interest and internal convic- 
tion led him to the same conclusion." 

In 1687, some months after his conversion, Dryden 
published the Hind and Panther, a controversial alle- 
gory in heroic metre in three books, the Eoman Church 
being represented by the Hind, and the Church of Eng- 
land by the Panther. Great was the clamour raised 
against him, and many were the answers that appeared, 
among which the City Mouse and Country House, the 
joint production of Prior and Charles Montague (after- 
wards Earl of Halifax) was the most successful. At the 
Revolution, Dryden was dismissed from his offices of poet 
laureate and royal historiographer, and had the morti- 
fication of seeing Shadwell, the dramatist, who had been 
repeatedly the butt of his ridicule, — Shadwell, the hero of 
Mac-Flecknoe and the Og of Absalom and Achitophel, 
— promoted to the laurel. For the remainder of his life 
Dryden was more or less harassed by the ills of poverty, 
but his genius shone out brighter as the end drew near. 
Alexander's Feast, which has been often pronounced to 
be the finest lyric in the language, was written in 1697; 
the translation of Virgil appeared in the same year ; 
and the Fables, which are translations from Ovid and 
Boccaccio, and modernizations of Chaucer, were published 
in March, 1700, only a few weeks before the poet's death. 
Dryden's manner of life was essentially that of a man 
of letters. He had no taste for field sports, and did not 
delight in rural solitudes ; nor, though he keenly watched 
the conflicts of parties and the development of political 
questions, did he ever mix personally in the turmoil 
of public life. Though not reserved, he was diffident and 
shy, and was far from cutting that brilliant figure in 
fashionable society which Pope, though self-educated and 
a parvenu, succeeded in doing. He rose early, spent 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 131 

all the fore part of the day in his own study reading 
or writing ; then about three o'clock betook himself to 
Wills's coffee-house, the common resort of a crowd of wits, 
pamphleteers, poets, and critics. There, seated in his 
own arm-chair, which was moved near the window in 
summer and to the fireside in winter, " glorious John " 
drank his bottle of port, and ruled the roast, the un- 
doubted chief of the English literary republic. 

The only other poets in this post-restoration period 
whom it is necessary to mention, are, Wentworth Dillon, 
Earl of Eoscommon, author of the Essay on Translated 
Verse, and Butler, the author of Hudibras. Both Dryden 
and Pope praised Eoscommon*, — the former in some fine 
lines (written on the publication of the Essay in 1680), 
the sense of which was rather closely followed by Pope in 
his Essay on Criticism. In both panegyrics the merit of 
Eoscommon is described to be, that he restored in Britain 
the authority of " wit's fundamental laws," and superseded 
Shakspeare's wild beauties and Milton's ruggedness by 

* Dryden writes, after mentioning the Italian poets, — 

" The French pursued their steps ; and Britain, last, 
In manly sweetness all the rest surpassed. 
The wit of Greece, the majesty of Rome, 
Appear exalted in the British loom : 
The Muses' empire is restored again, 
In Charles's reign, and by Roscommon's pen." 
And Pope, — 

" But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised, 
And kept unconquer'd and uncivilised ; 
Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold, 
"We still defied the Romans, as of old : 
Yet some there were among the sounder few, 
Of those who less presumed, and better knew, 
Who durst assert the juster, ancient cause, 
And here restored wit's fundamental laws. 
***** 

Such was Roscommon, not more learn' d than good, 
With manners generous as his noble blood; 
To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, 
And every author's merit but his own." 
K 2 



132 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

establishing the reign of classic elegance, polish, and cor- 
rectness. In short, Eoscommon, although his achieve- 
ments in these respects were much overrated by his 
eulogizers, was a kind of forerunner of Pope, and a writer 
of the classical school. 

Samuel Butler, the son of a Worcestershire farmer, 
lived for some years in early life in the house of Sir 
Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's commanders, who fur- 
nished him with the original of Huclibras. While 
staying here he composed his famous satire. After the 
Eestoration little is known with certainty about his 
manner of life. It is certain, however, that he was be- 
friended by Buckingham, and by Dryden's patron, the 
Earl of Dorset, and also that he passed all the latter part 
of his life in extreme poverty. The king, though he 
was extremely fond of Huclibras, and used constantly 
to quote from it, suffered the author to starve with 
his usual selfishness and ingratitude. This famous 
poem, which is in substance a satire on Puritans and 
Puritanism, may also be regarded as a burlesque on 
romances, the influence of Don Quixote being ap- 
parent ; and even as in a partial sense a parody on the 
Faery Queen, the titles to the cantos being clearly 
imitated from those of Spenser. The political importance 
of the poem was great. It turned the laugh against those 
terrible Puritans, a handful of whom had so long held 
the nation down, and defeated them more effectually than 
cannon-balls or arguments could have done : — 

"Ridiculum acri 
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res." 



Heroic Plays : — Comedy of Manners — Jeremy Collier. 

The position of the English drama after the Eestora- 
tion may be explained in a few words. The theatres 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 133 

had been closed ever since the Puritan party had gained 
the mastery in London, that is, since the year 1643. At 
the Eestoration they were re-opened as a matter of course: 
the king during his long foreign sojourn had become 
used to and fond of theatrical entertainments ; the cour- 
tiers ostentatiously shared in the royal taste ; and the long- 
silenced wits were only too glad of a favourable oppor- 
tunity for displaying their powers. Two theatres were 
licensed : one, which was under the direct patronage of 
Charles, was called the King's; the other, which was 
patronised by his brother, was known as the Duke's, 
theatre. Dryden, who, as has been mentioned, took to 
writing plays at this time for a livelihood, attached him- 
self to the former. The taste of the king was for the 
French school in tragedy, and the Spanish school in 
comedy ; and the influence of both is perceptible in 
Dryden's plays for many years. He could not, indeed, 
adopt the French heroic metre — the Alexandrine — for 
which our language is eminently unsuited ; but, retain- 
ing the ten-syllable verse of the Elizabethan dramatists, 
he followed Corneille and Eacan in forming it into rhym- 
ing couplets. In the plot and manner of his early pieces 
the Spanish taste conspicuously prevails. The high-flown 
sentiment, the daring enterprise, the romantic adventure, 
of the days of chivalry, still hold their ground in them, — 
still please a society which the modern critical spirit 
had as yet but partially invaded. These heroic plays 
of Dryden's are rightly described by Scott as " metrical 
romances in the form of dramas." A brief outline of 
the plot of the Conquest of Granada, the most bril- 
liant and successful among them, will best explain this 
definition : — 

The scene is laid in the Moorish kingdom of Granada ; the 
period is the fifteenth century, about the time of the conquest of 
Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. Almanzor, a peerless and 

K 3 



134 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

invincible Moorish knight errant, who owns no master upon earth, 
nor has hitherto stooped to love, breaks in upon a fight between 
two Moorish factions at Granada, and by the might of his single 
arm puts the combatants to flight. He then offers his services 
to the Moorish king Boabdelin. He transfers his allegiance 
several times, in the course of the play, from the king to his plot- 
ting brother Abdalla, and back again ; but the side, whichever 
it is, that he supports, with ease puts its enemies to the rout. 
His love, when he once yields to the passion, is as romantic as 
his valour. While aiding Abdalla, he takes captive Almahide, a 
noble lady betrothed to Boabdelin. The first glance of her eyes 
causes him to fall desperately in love ; but hearing of her en- 
gagement, he magnanimously resolves to release her. Later, 
after he has carried his sword to the side of the king, and having 
provoked Boabdelin by his arrogance to order his guards to fall 
upon him, has been overpowered and sentenced to die, Almahide 
obtains his pardon as the price of her consenting to many the 
king immediately. Hearing this, Almanzor would have killed 
himself; but Almahide lays her command upon him to live, 
and he obeys. After he has left the court, and the Christian 
armies are pressing strongly forward, a word from her recalls him, 
and his prowess rolls back for a time the tide of invasion. In 
the concluding battle the king is slain, and Almanzor recognizes 
in the Spanish general, after nearly killing him, his own father, 
from whom he had been separated in infancy. Almahide and 
he become Christians, and agree to marry when her year of 
widowhood is expired. 

Such was the material of which Dryden's plays were 
composed down to the year 1671, — a notable epoch in 
his dramatic career. The heroic play, it must be evident, 
from its tumid, exaggerated style, offered a broad mark 
for a clever satirist ; and its weak points were accordingly 
seized with great effect by the Duke of Buckingham and 
his coadjutors Sprat and Butler, in a play produced in 
that year. This was the famous comedy of the Re- 
hearsal, in which Dryden himself figures under the 
character of Bayes. The poet who, for one of the genus 
irritabile, was singularly free from personal vanity, felt 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 135 

that lie had received a home-thrust, remained silent, and 
speedily abandoned the line of the heroic drama. But 
he did not forget his obligations to Buckingham, and 
repaid them with interest a few years later, when he drew 
the portrait of Zimri in Absalom and Achitopkel. 

In his Essay of Dramatic Poesy, published in 1668, 
Dryden had earnestly argued that rhyme, which he calls 
the most noble verse, is alone fit for tragedy, which he 
calls the most noble species of composition ; and had 
therefore by implication condemned the use of blank verse 
by Shakspeare. But as his judgment grew clearer, and 
his taste more refined, he saw cause for changing his 
opinion. Some striking lines in the prologue to the 
tragedy of Aurungzebe, produced in 1675, mark this 
point in the progress of his mind. He is inclined, he 
says, to damn his own play, — 

" Not that it's worse than what before he writ, 
But he has now another taste of wit ; 
And, to confess a truth, though out of time, 
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme. 
Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound, 
And nature flies him like enchanted ground ; 
What yerse can do, he has performed in this, 
Which he presumes the most correct of his ; 
Put spite of all his pride, a secret shame 
Invades his breast at Shakspeare' s sacred name : 
And when he hears his godlike Romans rage, 
He, in a just despair, would quit the stage ; 
And to an age less polished, more unskilled, 
Does with disdain the foremost honours yield." 

In his next play, All for Love, he abandoned rhyme, 
and never afterwards returned to it. The influence of 
Shakspeare becomes more and more perceptible in the 
later plays, particularly in Don Sebastian, the finest 
of all Dryden's tragedies, produced in 1690. Thus the 
attempt to divert the taste of the play-going public from 
British to French and Spanish models was renounced by the 
projector himself, and replaced by a steady and continuous 

K 4 



136 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

effort to raise Shakspeare to his just rank in the estimation 
of his countrymen. It need hardly be said that, up to 
the present time, the work of appreciation, commenced 
by Dryden, has gone on in an unbroken development. 

In comedy, however, a new school arose, of which the 
tone and form may certainly be traced to the unrivalled 
genius of Moliere. The "comedy of manners," of 
which Congreve, Etherege, and Wycherley, were in our 
present period the chief representatives, exhibited, in 
polished and witty prose, the modes of acting, thinking, and 
talking, prevalent in the fashionable society of the time. 
That society was a grossly immoral one, and the plays 
which reflected its image were no less so. Congreve, 
the most eminent writer of this school, produced only 
five plays, one of which, the Mourning Bride, is a 
tragedy. His comedies are, the Old Bachelor (1693), 
the Double Dealer (1694), Love for Love (1695), and the 
Way of the World (1700). Congreve was the intimate 
friend of Dryden, who appointed him his literary executor, 
and in some well-known lines entreated him to be watch- 
ful over his memory : — 

"But you, whom every muse and grace adorn, 
Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 
Be kind to my remains ; and oh, defend, 
Against your judgment, your departed friend ! 
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue, 
But shade those laurels which descend to you : 
And take for tribute what these lines express, 
You merit more, nor could my love do less." 

Towards the end of the seventeenth century the im- 
morality of the stage began to be thought intolerable. In 
this respect the stage had remained stationary since the 
Eestoration, while the morals of English society had 
been gradually becoming purer. This general feeling 
found an exponent in Jeremy Collier, a non-juring* 

* That is, one who refused to take the oath of allegiance to King William. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 137 

divine, who wrote in 1698 his Short View of the Im- 
morality and Profaneness of the Stage. Both Dryden 
and Congreve were vio-orouslv assailed in this work on 
account of their dramatic misdeeds. Dryden magnani- 
mously pleaded guilty to the main charge, in the preface 
to his Fables, published in 1700, although he maintained 
that Collier had in many places perverted his meaning by 
his glosses, and was " too much given to horse-play in his 
raillery." " I will not say," he continues, " that the zeal 
of God's house has eaten him up ; but I am sure it has 
devoured some part of his good manners and civility." 
After a time, Collier's attack produced its effect ; the 
public taste became purer ; the intellect of the country 
became ashamed of the stage, and turned to cultivate 
other branches of literature ; and from that time the En- 
glish drama tended downwards to that condition of feeble- 
ness and inanity which reached its maximum about a 
hundred years later. 



Learning: — Usher; Selden; Gale, &c. 

The state of learning in England during this period was 
not so high as it has been generally esteemed. Selden 
says in his Table Talk — "The Jesuits and the lawyers 
of France, and the Low Country men, have engrossed all 
learning. The rest of the world make nothing but 
homilies." He was glancing here at the eloquent divines, 
Andrewes, Hall, Taylor, &c, whose works form the fa- 
vourite theology of an Anglican library. There was indeed 
abundance of illustrative, but little productive learning. 
The divines above mentioned, in their sermons, ransack 
for illustrations the whole series of the Greek and Latin 
authors, and show no slight acquaintance with councils 
and Fathers ; but they use all this learning merely to serve 
some immediate purpose ; they do not digest or analyse 



138 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

it with a view to obtaining from it permanent literary 
results. Usher, the Irishman, is the chief exception. 
James Usher, one of the three first matriculated students of 
Trinity College, Dublin*, upon its opening in 1593, rose 
to be Protestant primate of Armagh ; but he left Ireland 
in 1640, and, excusing himself on the plea of the social 
confusion which prevailed, never afterwards returned to it. 
His treatise, Be Ecclesiarum Britannicarum primordiis, 
and his celebrated Annates (a digest of universal his- 
tory from the creation to the destruction of Jerusalem by 
Titus), are works of solid learning and research, which 
even yet are not superseded. Selden himself possessed a 
great deal of abstruse learning ; probably no Englishman 
ever dived so deep into Eabbinical literature, or was so 
completely at home in certain branches of antiquarian 
research. But he cannot be compared with the great 
Dutchman of the age, Hugo Grrotius, whom he met in 
controversy f , nor with the Spanish Jesuit, Suarez. He 
was narrower, more lawyer-like, and less philosophical, than 
either of those two great men. The names of Grale, 
Grataker, Potter, and Stanley, are 'the most respectable 
that we can produce in the department of scholarship 
during the remainder of the period. Potter's Greek 
Antiquities, first published in 1697, was a text-book in 
all British schools for nearly a century and a half, having 
been superseded only within these few years by the fuller 
and more critical treatises for which Grerman thought and 
erudition have prepared the way. Of Bentley, the prince 
of English scholars, we shall speak in the next chapter. 

* Usher actively aided in the formation of the Trinity College Library, 
and his MSS., given after his death to the college by Charles II., form 
a valuable portion of its collections. See his life by Aikin. 

f Grotius wrote a book called Mare Liberum asserting the right of free 
fishery in the narrow seas near the English coast, to which Selden replied 
by his Mare Clausum, denying that right. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 139 

PROSE WRITINGS. 
Fiction : — " Pilgrim's Progress ; " Oratory. 

In the department of prose fiction, this period, but for 
one remarkable work, is absolutely sterile. In the excit- 
ing times of Charles I. and the Commonwealth, men 
were in too earnest a mood to spend much time in the 
contemplation of imaginary scenes and characters. Nor, 
during the twenty-eight years which separated the Eevo- 
lution from the Eestoration, had the agitation of society 
subsided sufficiently to admit of the formation of a novel- 
reading public, by which term is meant that large class of 
persons, easy in their circumstances, but victims to ennui, 
from the tranquillity and uniformity of their daily avoca- 
tions, — who seek in fiction the excitement which the 
stability of the social system has banished from their 
actual life. It must be remembered, also, that the drama 
was the surest road to popularity for an inventive genius 
up to the end of the century. Soon afterwards the stage 
fell into discredit, and the novel immediately appeared to 
fill the vacant place. 

One exception, however, to this rule of sterility is to 
be found in Bunyan's celebrated PilgrirrCs Progress. 
John Bunyan, a native of Elstow, near Bedford, was 
of obscure origin, and was brought up to the trade of 
a tinker. His youth, according to his ' own account, was 
wild and vicious ; but having been impressed by the ser- 
mon of a Baptist preacher, at which he was accidentally 
present, he was led to enter into himself, and gradually 
reformed his life. Forsaking the Church of England, he 
joined the Baptists, and became a preacher among them. 
When, after the Eestoration, severe laws were passed 
against non-conformity, Bunyan, refusing to be silenced, 
was thrown into Bedford gaol, where he was detained 
twelve years. Here it was that he wrote his famous alle- 



140 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

gory, the object of which is to represent, under the figure 
of a journey taken by a pilgrim, the course of a Christian's 
life in his passage through this world to the world to 
come. No original work in the English language has 
had a greater circulation than the Pilgrim's Progress, 
nor been translated into a greater number of foreign lan- 
guages. The work was first published complete in 1684; 
Bunyan died in 1688. 

Under the head of Oratory we find scarcely anything 
deserving of mention. Cromwell's speeches, with their 
designed ambiguity, their cloudy pietism, their involved 
long-winded sentences, are hardly readable, in spite 
of Mr. Carlyle's editorial industry. The speeches given 
in Clarendon's History are often very interesting ; but the 
difficulty of knowing how much may be the author's own 
composition detracts, of course, from their value. Pam- 
phlets issued in shoals from the press during all this 
period. 



History and Biography : — Milton, Ludlow, Clarendon, &c. ; 
Wood's " Athense," Pepys, Evelyn, &c. 

In our last notice of historical writing, it appeared 
that in the first quarter of the century the best of our 
historians had written on the affairs of Turkey and on 
the ancient world. But as the century wore on, and the 
shadow of the civil war began to darken the sky, English 
contemporary history became a subject of such absorb- 
ing and pressing interest, that our writers had no thought 
to spare for that of foreign nations and distant times. 
Fuller, Milton, Ludlow, May, Whitlocke, Eushworth, and 
Clarendon, besides many inferior writers, wrote entirely, 
so far as they were historians at all, upon English affairs. 
Thomas Fuller, a clergyman, of great wit and originality, 
wrote a Church History of Britain from the Birth of 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. " 141 

Jesus Christ until the Year 1648; this work was pub- 
lished in 1656. Milton's History of England is but 
a fragment, extending " from the first traditional begin- 
ning to the Norman Conquest." It is remarkable as being 
the first regular history in which doubt is expressed as to 
the historical value of the British legends, derived from 
Greoffrey of Monmouth, and gravely repeated by all the 
old chroniclers. Ludlow was one of Cromwell's generals, 
and signed the warrant for Charles I.'s execution; his 
Memoirs, written during his exile in Switzerland, rela- 
ting, for the most part, to events in which he had himself 
been an actor, were first published after his death in 
1698. John May, a lawyer, described the civil strife, 
both in Parliament and in the field, from the parlia- 
mentary point of view; his work, published about 1650, 
is described by Hallam as a kind of contrast to that of 
Clarendon. Bulstrode Whitlocke, one of the commis- 
sioners of the Ghreat Seal under Cromwell, composed some 
dull, but in many respects important, memoirs, which 
were first published in 1682. Eushworth's Historical 
Collections — a perfect mine of information — appeared 
in 1659. He was a clerk in the House of Commons, 
and for many years was in the habit of taking notes of 
" speeches and passages at conferences in Parliament, and 
from the king's own mouth what he spoke to both houses, 
and was upon the stage continually an eye and an ear 
witness of the greatest transactions." * His Collections 
range over the period from 1618 to 1644. 

Of works subsidiary to history, e.g. biographies, per- 
sonal memoirs, diaries, &c, we meet with a considerable 
number. The most important among them is the well- 
known Athenw Oxonienses of Anthony a Wood, a 
"History of all the writers and bishops educated at 
Oxford from 1500 to 1695." Fuller's well-known biogra- 

* "Wood's Athena. 



142 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

phical work on the Worthies of England, containing 
sketches of about eighteen hundred individuals — among 
others, of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare, — arranged 
under the several counties of England and Wales, appeared 
in 1662, the year after his death. Izaak Walton, better 
known for his Treatise on Angling, wrote Lives of 
several eminent Anglican divines, including Hooker, 
Donne, and Sanderson. Baxter's Reliquiae Baxteriance, a 
curious autobiography, confused, however, in arrangement 
and badly edited, first appeared in 1696. All the material 
portions of it are given in Orme's Life of Baxter. The 
curious Diary of Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Ad- 
miralty, extending over the years 1660 — 1669, was first 
given to the world in 1825, having lain veiled in its 
original cipher, till raked out of the MS. repository of 
the Pepysian Library, and deciphered under the superin- 
tendence of Lord Braybrooke. Andrew Marvell, in his 
Seasonable Argument, printed in 1677, thus disposes 
of Pepys, who was then member for the borough of Castle 
Eising : — " Castle Eising : Samuel Pepys, once a taylour, 
then serving-man to the Lord Sandwitch, now secretary 
to the Admiralty, got by passes and other illegal wayes 
£40,000." It was not Samuel, however, but his father, 
who was the tailor. John Evelyn, a country gentleman, 
skilled in the mysteries of planting and landscape-garden- 
ing, is the author of a Diary, first published in 1818, 
which, among other matters, contains an interesting 
account of the great fire of London, of which he was 
an eye-witness. 

We have few or no narratives of adventure, by sea or 
land, to record in connection with this period. A time 
of civil war concentrates the thoughts and the activity of 
men upon their own country, just as in the systole of the 
heart the blood all flows together to the vital centre. 
In tranquil times, the counter movement — the diastole — 
sets in, and the energies of many of the most stirring and 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 143 

gifted persons in the nation are turned outwards, and 
employed over wide and remote areas in the search of 
excitement, or the investigation of nature. • 

Theology: — Hall ; Jeremy Taylor ; Gother; Baxter, &c. 

This is the Augustan period of Anglican divinity. If 
we examine the literature of the controversy that raged, 
in this as in the previous period, between the Church of 
England and the Puritans, we shall find that, if we put 
aside the writings of Milton, the Episcopalian writers 
immeasurably excelled their opponents both in talent and 
learning. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, comes next 
for mention in order of time after Bishop Andrewes. 
By his reply to the pamphlet produced by five Puritan 
ministers, who wrote under the fictitious name of (i Smec- 
tymnuus, " he drew upon himself the fierce invectives 
of Milton. His Meditations and Characters will be 
noticed in the next section. Ejected by the Puritans 
from the see of Norwich in 1643, he retired to a small 
estate at Higham, where he died at a very advanced age 
in 1656. 

Jeremy Taylor, the most eloquent of English writers, 
was born at Cambridge in 1613. Like nearly all the 
Anglican divines of this period, he inclined to the tenets 
of Arminius, a Dutch theologian, who died in 1608, and 
whose opinions were vehemently anathematized after his 
death by the Calvinistic synod of Dort. If asked, what 
precisely the Arminians held ? one might answer, as Morley 
is said to have done * when a country squire put him the 
question, " All the best bishoprics and deaneries in 
England ; " — it will be sufficient, however, to say that 
Arminianism was a species of Pelagianism, and arose by 
way of reaction against the predestinarian extravagances 

* Clarendon's Autobiography. 



144 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of the Calvinists. Coleridge gives the following graphic 
account of the English Arminians : — " Towards the close of 
the reign of our first James, and during the period from 
the accession of Charles I. to the restoration of his pro- 
fligate son, there arose a party of divines, Arminians (and 
many of them Latitudinarians) in their creed, but devotees 
of the throne and the altar, soaring High Churchmen and 
ultra Eoyalists. Much as I dislike their scheme of doctrine 
and detest their principles of government, both in Church 
and State, I cannot but allow that they formed a galaxy 
of learning and talent, and that among them the Church 
of England finds her stars of the first magnitude. Instead 
of regarding the Eeformation established under Edward VI. 
as imperfect, they accused the Eeformers, some of them 
openly, but all in their private opinions, of having gone 
too far ; and while they were willing to keep down (and 
if they could not reduce him to a primacy of honour, to 

keep out) the Pope, they were zealous to 

restore the hierarchy, and to substitute the authority of 
the Fathers, Canonists, and Councils of the first six 
or seven centuries, and [some of the] later Doctors and 
Schoolmen, for the names of Luther, Melancthon, 
Bucer, Calvin, and the systematic theologians who 
rejected all testimony but that of their Bible." * 

Taylor's earlier works, written in the lifetime of 
Charles I., while he was (to use Coleridge's phrase) 
" ambling on the high road of preferment," were all of 
the High Church school ; that is, they were directed to 
the defence of the sacred character of Episcopacy, and to 
the vindication of the doctrine and discipline of the Church 
of England against the Puritans. But during the Protec- 
torate he published a work of a very different complexion. 
" Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis." This was 
his famous Liberty of Prophesying, a treatise on tolera- 

* Literary Bemains, toI. iii. p. 385. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 145 

tion, in which he argued that the State should tolerate all 
sects which agreed to receive the Apostles' Creed as their 
common standard of faith. This was nothing more than a 
political application of the view propounded by Chilling- 
worth in his Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Sal- 
vation (published in 1637), to the effect that the profes- 
sion of Christianity ought to involve nothing more than 
subscription to this creed. Milton's Areopagitica, or 
Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, pub- 
lished in 1644, should be compared with the Liberty of 
Prophesying, the former being a plea for a free press, 
the latter a plea for freedom of public worship. Coleridge 
remarks — " The Liberty of Prophesying is an admirable 
work, in many respects, and calculated to produce a much 
greater effect on the many than Milton's treatise on the 
same subject; on the other hand, Milton's is throughout 
unmixed truth ; and the man who in reading the two does 
not feel the contrast between the single-mindedness of the 
one, and the strabismus in the other, is — in the road of 
preferment." * 

After the Eestoration, Taylor was appointed Protestant 
Bishop of Down. Episcopacy was now again dominant, 
and we find Taylor " basely disclaiming and disavowing 
the principle of toleration," and excusing himself as best 
he could for his late liberalism. Of his remaining works 
the most remarkable are, the Holy Living and the 
Holy Dying, devotional treatises, of which it is im- 
possible not to admire the depth of thought, the fervour, 
and the eloquence. Taylor died in 1667. 

Of the other Anglican divines who flourished in the 
reign of Charles II., we can only specify Bishop Bull, 
author of the Defensio Fidel Nicamce; Isaac Barrow, master 
of Trinity College, Cambridge, who wrote a learned work on 
the Supremacy, but who is', perhaps, even better known as 

* Literary Eemains, vol. iii. p. 204. 
L 



146 HISTOKY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

a mathematician ; and Pearson, author of an exposition of 
the Apostles' Creed. The leading divines in this reign 
cared little to continue the old controversy with the 
Puritans, whom they regarded as a fallen and innocuous 
foe, but rather turned their arms against Catholicism. 
This was particularly the case after the accession of 
James II. Stillingneet, Tillotson, and others, carried on 
this warfare with great literary ability ; and, in point of 
style and forcible rhetoric, were certainly more than a 
match for their Catholic opponents, of whom the most 
noted was the excellent Grother. Dryden, though his 
blows were wonderfully telling, entered into the strife 
rather as a guerilla than as a regular combatant. 

A new school, the rise of which is graphically described 
by Burnet in his History of his Oivn Times, made its 
appearance towards the end of the reign of Charles II. 
This was the school of the Latitudinarian, or Platonizing, 
divines, the chief among whom were, Archbishop Leigh- 
ton, Henry More, Wilkins, and Cudworth. They all 
belonged to the Church of England; but it was their 
desire to see the terms of church membership so modi- 
fied, by the suppression, or at any rate non-imposition, 
of those parts of the Anglican doctrine and discipline 
which were obnoxious to other Protestants, as to admit 
of a comprehension of the great body of the Noncon- 
formists within the pale of the National church. Soon 
after the Kevolution, a bill for effecting this comprehen- 
sion was brought into Parliament, and nearly passed into 
law; it was, however, ultimately rejected. 

The chief Puritan name in the latter part of the century 
is that of Eichard Baxter. Baxter was a Presbyterian ; and, 
although he actively exerted himself in favour of -the 
Eestoration, was ejected soon after it, under the Act of Uni- 
formity, from his living of Kidderminster. He was a man 
of great activity of mind, and readiness of pen ; and his 
writings — from the thick volume to the occasional tract 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 147 

— are almost countless. He was a zealous polemic, and 
levelled no small number of his publications at what he 
called "Popery." It is curious, however, that not one 
of these productions appeared in the reign of James II., 

— a period when so uncompromising a divine would have 
found it, one would have thought, especially incumbent 
upon him to uphold his testimony. But the series breaks 
off before the accession of James, and is not renewed till 
after the Eevolution. This silence is explained, of course, 
by the community of political interests which the king, 
by his declarations of indulgence, strove to establish, and, 
in part, succeeded in establishing, between the Catholics 
and the Nonconformists. Baxter's most popular work is 
a devotional treatise, published in 1649, entitled The 
Saints' Everlasting Rest. 



Philosophy : — Hobbes ; Locke. 

Though the philosophical teaching of the English Uni- 
versities remained in statu quo during this period, specula- 
tion was common among cultivated minds, and developed in 
certain branches of inquiry marked and important results. 
In metaphysics occurs the name of Thomas Hobbes, and the 
still more famous name of John Locke. Political reasoning 
was earnestly followed by Milton, Hobbes, Sidney, Har- 
rington, Filmer, and Locke. Essay- writing was attempted 
by Felltham, and more successfully by Bishop Hall and 
Sir Thomas Browne. Lastly, the " new philosophy," as it 
was called in that age, that is, the philosophy of experi- 
ment, received a strong impulse through the incorpora- 
tion, in 1662, of the Eoyal Society. 

Hobbes, the "philosopher of Malmesbury," was born 
in the year of the Spanish Armada, and is said to have 
owed the nervous timidity of his constitution to the terror 
with which his mother regarded the approach of the in- 

L 2 



148 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

vading host. After a residence of five years at Oxford, 
lie travelled on the continent, and made the acquaintance 
of several eminent mem Keturning to England, he 
devoted himself to the careful study of the classical 
historians and poets. He early conceived a dislike to the 
democratical or movement party of that day, and in 1628 
published a translation of Thucydides, "that the follies 
of the Athenian democrats might be made known to his 
fellow-citizens." For the greater portion of his long life, 
after attaining to manhood, he resided as a tutor or as a 
friend in the family of the Earls of Devonshire. The 
stormy opening of the Long Parliament, in 1640, led him 
to apprehend civil war, from which his timid nature in- 
stinctively shrank ; he accordingly went over to France, 
and took up his abode at Paris. Among his philosophical 
acquaintance there, were Grassendi and Father Mersenne. 
The former was as great a sceptic as himself; the latter, 
he says *, once when he was dangerously ill, tried to make 
him a Catholic, but without the least success. His poli- 
tical treatise, De Vive, was published at Paris in 1646. 
The Leviathan, containing his entire philosophical 
system, appeared in 1651 ; the De Covpore, a physio- 
logical work, in 1655, and the De Homine in 1658. 
At the age of eighty he wrote his Behemoth, a history 
of the civil war, and, about the same time, a Latin 
poem on the rise and growth of the Papal power. In 
his eighty-seventh year he published a metrical version of 
the Odyssey, and in the following year one of the Iliad ; 
both, however, are worthless. He died in 1679, being then 
ninety-one years old. 

Few names occur in the history of our literature which 
are more noteworthy than that of John Locke, because 
there are few writers to whose influence important changes 

* See his curious Latin autobiography, prefixed to the edition of his 
works by Sir W. Molesworth. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD. 149 

or advances in general opinion, upon divers important 
questions, can be so certainly and directly attributed. 
His political doctrines have been persistently carried into 
practice by his own country ever since his death, and 
recently by other countries also; and the results have — 
to outward appearance, at least — been singularly en- 
couraging. By his famous Essay on the Human Under- 
standing, he effectually checked the tendency to waste 
the efforts of the mind in sterile metaphysical discussions, 
and opened out a track of inquiry which the human mind 
has earnestly prosecuted ever since, with ever-increasing 
confidence in the soundness of the method, considered as 
a testing process, applicable to matters of fact. Lastly, 
his Treatise on Education, from which Eousseau is said to 
have largely borrowed in his Emile, contains the first- 
suggestion of a large number of those improvements, both 
in the theory and practice of education, which the pre- 
sent age has seen effected. 

Locke resided for many years in the house of his patron 
and friend, Lord Shaftesbury, the Achitophel of Dryden's 
satire, whose character the poet portrayed in those 
famous lines, — 

" Restless, unfixed in principles and place, 
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; 
A fiery soul, "which, working out its way, 
Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay." 

Sharing the Whig opinions of his patron, Locke came 
in also for his full share of the enmity of the Court, which 
even demanded, in 1685, his extradition from the States- 
G-eneral of Holland (whither he had followed Shaftesbury 
after his disgrace in 1682). His friends, however, con- 
cealed him, and Locke had the satisfaction of returning to 
England in the fleet of the conquering William of Orange. 
Strange ! that of the two greatest Englishmen of that day 
— John Locke and John Dryden — the resemblance of 

L 3 



150 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITER/VTURE. 

whose portraits must have struck many an observer, the 
one should date his personal advancement and the triumph 
of the cause to which he adhered, from the same event 
which brought dismissal, ruin, and humiliation to the 
other ! 

Locke's own account of the origin of the Essay is 
interesting. In the prefatory Epistle to the Eeader, he 
says, " Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this 
Essay, I should tell thee that five or six friends, meeting 
at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote 
from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the 
difficulties that rose on every side. After we had a while 
puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution 
of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my 
thoughts that we took a wrong course ; and that, before 
we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was ne- 
cessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects 
our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. 
This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented ; 
and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first 
inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts on a 
subject I had never before considered, which I set down 
against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this 
discourse ; which, having been thus begun by chance, was 
continued by intreaty ; written by incoherent parcels ; and, 
after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my 
humour or occasions permitted ; and at last, in a retire- 
ment, where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, 
it was brought into that order thou now seest it." 

The order in which Locke's principal works appeared 
was as follows : —his first Letter on Toleration was pub- 
lished in Holland in 1688; the Essay on the Human 
Understanding appeared in 1689; the two Treatises on 
Government in 1690; the Thoughts upon Education in 
1693; and the treatise on the Reasonableness of Chris- 
tianity in 1695. Locke died unmarried at the house of 



CIVIL WAR PEEIOD. 151 

his friend, Sir Francis Masham, in Essex, in the year 
1704. 

Of the many remarkable works on political science, to 
which this agitated period gave birth, we shall have 
occasion to speak more particularly in the second part 
of this work. Speaking generally, these works represent 
the opinions of five parties : cavalier Tories, and philo- 
sophical Tories ; Puritan Whigs, and constitutional Whigs ; 
and philosophical Eepublicans. Sir Eobert Firmer, author 
of the Patriarcha, in which the doctrine of " the right 
divine of kings to govern wrong " was pushed to its ex- 
treme, was the chief writer of the first party; Hobbes 
represented the second ; Milton and Algernon Sydney the 
third ; Locke the fourth ; and Harrington the fifth. 
Milton's chief political treatises are, the Tenure of Kings 
and Magistrates (1649), and The ready arid easy Way 
to establish a free Commonwealth (1660). Harrington's 
Oceana,, the name by which he designates England, as his 
imagination painted her after being regenerated by re- 
publicanism, was published in 1656. The Protector's 
government at first refused to allow it to appear, but Crom- 
well, at the request of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth, 
gave his consent to the publication, coupled, however, with 
the dry remark, that " what he had won by the sword he 
should not suffer himself to be scribbled out of." 



Essay Writing : — Hall; Feltham; Browne. 

The examples of Bacon and Burton were followed by 
several gifted men in this period, who preferred jotting down 
detached thoughts on a variety of subjects, making as it 
were "Guesses at Truth " in a variety of directions, to the 
labour of concentrating their faculties upon a single intel- 
lectual enterprise. Thus Bishop Hall wrote, in the early 
part of the century, Three Centuries of Meditations and 

L 4 



152 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

Vows, each century containing a hundred short essays or 
papers. Felltharn's Resolves ("resolve," in the sense 
of " solution of a problem "), published in 1637, is a work 
of the same kind. The Religio Medici of Sir Thomas 
Browne *, the knight of Norwich, is also nothing but 
a medley of opinions, and strange or humorous notions, 
quaintly and sometimes eloquently expressed, upon reli- 
gion, and many other matters besides. 



Physical Science. 

The present Eoyal Society, incorporated with a view to 
the promotion of physical science in 1662, arose out of 
some scientific meetings held at Oxford in the rooms of 
Dr. Wilkins, the President of Wadham College. They 
soon had the honour of numbering among their fellows 
the great Newton, some of whose principal discoveries 
were first made known to the world in their Proceed- 
ings, Newton was educated at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge ; in the chapel of which society may be seen a 
noble statue of him by Eoubillac, with the inscription, 
61 Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit.' r 

* Author also of Hydriotaphia and a Treatise on Vulgar Errors (1646). 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 153 



CHAPTEE V. 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

We will commence, as in the last period, with a brief 
summary of the political history. 

The opening of the century beheld the firm establish- 
ment of the state of things brought in at the Eevolution 
of 1688, by the passing of the Act of Settlement, limiting 
the succession to the crown to Sophia, wife of the elector 
of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. 
The various Protestant sects had just obtained toleration ; 
the Catholics, on the other hand, lay under the full weight 
of a penal code, the oppressiveness of which had just been 
aggravated by the passing of the Act of 1700, the avowed 
object of which was, to cause the forfeiture of the estates 
of all Catholic proprietors who refused to abandon their 
faith. The only palliation that Mr. Hallam can find*, 
with reference to this measure, is, that it was very spa- 
ringly put in force ; which must indeed have been the case, 
otherwise there could not well be a Catholic landholder 
in these countries at the present moment. The Catholics 
had, moreover, to pay double taxes, were excluded from all 
public employments, and were shut out from the Univer- 
sities. Much the same system was being pursued at the 
same time by the government of Louis XIV. towards the 
Huguenots of France ; but with this difference, that the 
despotic character of the French monarchy caused the 
laws to be executed in France with infinitely greater 
rigour and punctuality than was the case in England. 

* Constitutional Hist., vol. iii. ch. y. 



154 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Upon the accession of Anne in 1702, a Tory ministry 
came into power for a short time. But its principal 
member — the able and unprincipled Grodolphin — passed 
over to the Whigs, and it was Whig policy which engaged 
the nation in the war of the Spanish succession. Marl- 
borough, the great Whig general, was closely connected 
with Grodolphin by marriage. Everyone has heard of the 
victories of Blenheim, Eamillies, and Oudenarde. Through 
the intrigues of Mrs. Masham, a lady of the bed-chamber, 
who had obtained an ascendency over the feeble mind of 
the Queen, and partly in consequence of the odium which 
the ill-advised prosecution of Dr. Sacheverel for preaching 
high Toryism before Parliament, drew down upon them, 
the Whig ministry were dismissed in 1710. Their Tory 
successors, Harley, Earl of Oxford, and St. John Lord 
Bolingbroke, concluded the peace of Utrecht in 1713. 
But at the death of Anne in the following year the Tory 
ministers, who showed symptoms of favouring the claims 
of the Pretender (the son of James II.), were at once 
hurled from power, and the long period of Whig rule 
commenced, which only ended with the resignation of Sir 
Eobert Walpole, in 1742. This celebrated minister prac- 
tically ruled the country for twenty-one years, from 1721 
to 1742, during which period England, through him, 
preserved peace with foreign powers ; and such wars as 
arose on the continent were shorter and less destructive 
than they would otherwise have been. But in 1741 the 
temper of the country had become so warlike that a 
peace policy was no longer practicable, and Walpole was 
forced to succumb. The administration which succeeded, in 
which the leading spirit was that fine scholar and high- 
minded nobleman, Lord Carteret (afterwards Earl Gran- 
ville), engaged in the Austrian succession war, on the side 
of Maria Theresa. England played no very distinguished 
part in this war, the success at Dettingen (1743) being 
more than counterbalanced by the reverse at Fontenoy 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 155 

in the following year. The intrigues of the Pelhams 
drove Lord Granville from office in 1744, and the Duke 
of Newcastle, with his brother, Mr. Pelham, formed, with 
the aid of the leaders of the opposition, what was called 
the " Broad bottom " ministry. Newcastle — a man of 
small ability, but strong in his extensive parliamen- 
tary influence — remained prime minister for twelve 
years. In 1745 occurred the insurrection of the Highland 
clans in favour of the Prince Charles Edward, grandson of 
James II. After defeating the royal troops at Preston 
Pans, the Prince marched into England, and penetrated 
as far as Derby. But, meeting with no support, he was 
compelled to retreat, and in the following year his brave 
but irregular followers were totally routed by the Duke of 
Cumberland at Culloden. The continental war was ter- 
minated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. At the 
breaking out of the Seven Years' War in 1756, in which 
England was allied with Frederic of Prussia against 
France and Eussia, the Duke of Newcastle's incapacity 
caused everything to miscarry. Minorca was lost, and 
the Duke of Cumberland capitulated, with his whole army, 
to the French, at Closter-seven. Pitt, the great Commoner, 
the honest statesman, the terrible and resistless orator, 
had to be admitted, though sorely against the king's will, 
to a seat in the Cabinet. The force of his genius and the 
contagion of his enthusiasm effected a marvellous change ; 
and the memorable year 1759 witnessed the triumph of 
the allies at Minden, the victory of Wolfe on the heights 
of Abraham, which led to the conquest of Canada, and 
the defeat of the French fleet by Hawke off Belleisle. 

Pitt had to resign in 1761, making way for the king's 
favourite, Lord Bute, who concluded the treaty of Fon- 
tainebieau at the end of 1762, by which Canada, Cape 
Breton, part of Louisiana, Florida, the Senegal, and Mi- 
norca, were ceded to Britain. For the next twelve years 
England was universally regarded as the most powerful 



156 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

and successful nation in Europe. But the war had been 
frightfully expensive, and Mr. Grrenville, who was prime 
minister from 1763 to 1765, conceived in an unlucky 
hour the idea that a revenue could be raised from America 
by taxes laid on the colonies by the authority of Parlia- 
ment. The Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 delayed the 
bursting of the storm ; but fresh attempts at taxation being 
made, and resisted by the people of Boston, the war of 
independence broke out in the year 1775, and, through 
the help of France, which allied itself with the new 
Republic in 1778, resulted in the recognition by Great 
Britain of the independence of the United States in 1783. 
Lord Chatham, who had all along condemned the awkward 
and irritating measures of coercion employed by the 
ministry, vainly opposed, in his memorable dying speech 
in the House of Lords, 'the dismemberment of this 
ancient monarchy.' 

The administration which conducted the American war 
was presided over by the Tory premier, Lord North, who 
governed the country for twelve years, from 1770 to 1782. 
Up to the former date the powers of government had, 
ever since 1688, been exercised, with the exception of a 
few brief intervals, by the great Whig families — the 
Russells, Pelhams, Fitzroys, Bentincks, &c. (together with 
the commoners whom they selected to assist them) — who 
prided themselves on having brought about the Revolution. 
It cannot be denied that on the whole this junto governed 
with great vigour and success, and that the English aris- 
tocracy never showed itself to greater advantage. With 
the advent of Lord North to power, all was changed. 
Great questions were handled by little men, and the pre- 
ponderance of intellectual power remained always on the 
side of the opposition, which numbered Fox, Burke, 
Barre, Dunning, and Sheridan, in its ranks. At length, in 
1782, Lord North was driven from the helm, and after the 
frrief administrations of the Marquis of Rockingham and 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 157 

Lord Shelburne, and that which resulted from the coalition 
of Fox with Lord North, the younger Pitt came into 
power at the end of 1783, and commenced his long and 
eventful career as prime minister. His policy was at first 
purely Whig and constitutional, like that of his father ; 
but, after 1789, the attitude which he was compelled to 
take in relation to the extreme or revolutionary liberal- 
ism of France, gradually changed the position of his 
government to such an extent as to make it essentially 
Tory, as being supported by the Tory party in Parliament 
and in the country. Pitt, however, remained personally a 
sincere and consistent liberal to the last. 



General Characteristics : — Pope and Johnson ; Poetry 
from 1700 to 1745. 

The eighteenth century was a period of repose and sta- 
bility in England's political history. Saved by her insular 
position from the desolating wars which ravaged the conti- 
nent, and acquiescing in the compromise between theo- 
retical liberty and prescriptive right established at the 
Revolution of 1688, the nation enjoyed during the whole 
of the period, except in the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 
1745, profound internal peace. Then was the time, it 
might have been imagined, for the fructification under the 
most favourable circumstances of whatever germs- of 
thought the philosophy and poetry of preceding ages had 
implanted in the English mind, in the noblest and purest 
forms of literature and art. 

Such, however, was far from being the case. The litera- 
ture of the eighteenth century, though occupying a large 
space to our eyes at the present day, from the proximity 
of the time and the want of other thinkers who have taken 
up the ground more satisfactorily, is for the most part 
essentially of the fugitive sort, and will probably be 



158 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

considered in future ages as not having treated with true 
appreciation one single subject which it has handled. -To 
speculate upon the causes of this inferiority does not lie 
within the scope of the present work ; we have simply to 
note the fact. 

The rising of the clans in 1745 divides our period into 
two nearly equal portions, of the first of which Pope may be 
taken as the representative author ; of the second, Johnson. 
!" Alexander Pope was born at the house of his father, a 
linen merchant, residing in Lombard Street, London, in 
the year 1688. A sojourn at Lisbon had led to the father's 
conversion to Catholicism, and young Pope was brought 
up, so far as circumstances would allow, in the rigid belief 
and practice of his father's creed. His religion excluded 
him from the public schools and universities of England ; 
his education was therefore private, and not, it would 
appear, of the best kind. Such as it was, it was not con- 
tinued long; so that Pope may be considered as emi- 
nently a self-taught man — a self-cultivated poet. His 
poetic gift manifested itself early : — 

" As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, 
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 

The classical poets soon became his chief study and 
delight, and he valued the moderns in proportion as they 
had drunk more or less deeply of the classical spirit. The 
genius of the Gothic or Eomantic ages inspired him at 
this time with no admiration whatever, so that in the re- 
trospect of the poetical and critical masterpieces of past 
times, which concludes the third book of the Essay on 
Criticism, he can find no bright spot in the thick intel- 
lectual darkness, from the downfall of the Western Empire 
to the age of Leo X. The only native writers whom he 
deigns to mention are — Eoscommon and Walsh ! To 
the author of the Essay on Translated Verse he was in- 
deed largely indebted, not only for the general conception 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 159 

of the Essay on Criticism, but even for some of the best 
expressions in it.* Walsh, too, who was a man of fortune, 
was his patron and kind entertainer, and gratitude led 
Pope to do him, as a poet, a little more than justice. But 
in spite of minor blemishes one cannot be blind to the tran- 
scendent merits of this production, which, taken as the 
composition of a youth of twenty or twenty-one, is an 
intellectual and rhythmical achievement perhaps un- 
paralleled. 

In a memorable passage, containing not a few illustrious 
names, Pope has told us how he came to publish : — 

" But why then publish ? Granville the polite — 
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write : 
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise, 
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays ; 
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield, read ; 
E'en mitred Rochester would nod the head : 
And St. John's self (Great Dryden's friend before) 
With open arms received one poet more."f 

Drydenhehadjust seen, and no more (" Virgilium tantum 
vidi " is his expression), in the last year of the old poet's 
life, he being then a boy of twelve. He knew Wycherley, 
the dramatist, then a somewhat battered, worn-out relic of 
the gay reign of Charles II., and wrote an excellent letter 
on the occasion of his death in 1716. His relations to 

* Roscommon has, speaking of Dryden — 

"And with a brave disorder shows his art." 
Pope follows with — 

" From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part." 
Again, Roscommon has — 

" Then make the proper use of each extreme." 
" And write with fury, but correct with phlegm." 

Of this Pope's lines are but the echo — 

" Our critics take a contrary extreme, 
They judge with fury, but correct with phlegm." 
f Imitations of Horace. 



160 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Addison were characteristic on both sides. Steele in- 
troduced them to each other in 1712. Several trifling 
circumstances which occurred in the three following years 
conspired to create an unpleasant state of feeling between 
them, which was brought to a climax in 1715 by the en- 
couragement given by Addison to his friend Tickell in his 
project of a rival translation of Homer. Pope's version 
and that by Tickell came out nearly together, and nothing 
can be clearer than the great superiority of the former. 
Yet Addison (one cannot but fear, out of jealousy), while 
praising both translations, pronounced that TickelFs " had 
more of Homer." This was the occasion of Pope's writing 
that wonderful piece of satire, which will be found at a sub- 
sequent page. Addison made no direct reply, but a few 
months later he, in a paper published in the Freeholder, 
spoke in terms of high praise of Pope's translation. The 
poet's susceptible nature was touched by this generosity, and 
he, in his turn, immortalised Addison in his fifth satire : — 

" And in our days (excuse some courtly stains) 
No whiter page than Addison remains ; 
He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, 
And sets the passions on the side of truth ; 
Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, 
And pours each human virtue in the heart." 

Far more close and cordial were the relations between 
Pope and Swift. Their acquaintance began at the time 
of Swift's residence in London, between 1710 and 1713. 
The famous Dean was twenty-one years older than Pope ; 
but there must have been a strong inherent sympathy be- 
tween their characters, for they became fast friends at 
once, and continued so until Swift's mind broke down. 
Each had all the tastes of the author and man of letters ; 
'each was audacious and satirical; each saw through and 
despised the hollowness of society, though in their different 
ways each strove to raise himself in it. Swift's ambition 
was for power ; he wished that his literary successes should 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 161 

serve merely as a basis and vantage-ground whence to 
scale the high places of the State ; Pope's ambition was 
purely for fame, and he regarded literary success, not as a 
means, but as an end. It certainly shows some real ele- 
vation of soul in both, that two men, each so irritable, 
and whose very points of resemblance might have made 
it easier for them to come into collision, should have re- 
mained steady friends for twenty-five years.- The utter 
absence of jealousy in both will perhaps account for the 
fact. . Soon after they became acquainted, Swift was able 
to do Pope a great service. In 1713, the prospectus of 
the translation of the Iliad appeared ; and Swift, who was 
at that time a real power in London society, used his op- 
portunities to get the subscription list we] 1 filled. Chiefly 
by his exertions, the list became such a long one, that the 
proceeds amounted to a small fortune for Pope, and set 
him at ease on the score of money matters for the re- 
mainder of his life.- His labours in connection with the 
translation of Homer extended from 1713 to 1725. He 
employed in translating the Odyssey the services of two 
minor poets, Fenton and Broome, so that only one-half of 
the version is from his own hand. 

In 1725 Pope published an edition of Shakspeare. His 
preface shows a juster appreciation of the great dramatist 
than was then common ; yet his own taste pointed too 
decidedly to the French and classical school to admit of 
his doing full justice to the chief of the Eomantic. He 
was the first to amend two or three corrupt readings by 
slight and happy alterations, which have since been uni- 
versally adopted. Such is his substitution of rt south " for 
the old reading " sound," in the lines in Tivelfth Night — 

" Oh.! it came o'er mine ear like the sweet south 
That breathes over a bank of violets ;" 

and of "strides" for "sides," (and Tarquin's ravishing. 
strides,") in Macbeth. 

M 



162 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The first three books of the Dunciad, which was dedi- 
cated to Swift, appeared anonymously in 1728. In it the 
poet revenges himself on a number of obscure poets and 
feeble critics, who had — though not without provocation 
— attacked and libelled him. The very obscurity of these 
individuals detracts much from the permanent interest of 
the satire. The persons and parties introduced by Dryden 
in his Absalom and Achitophel occupied elevated situa- 
tions upon the public stage, and, as the satire itself is 
conceived and composed in a corresponding strain of ele- 
vation, it is probable that, so long as English history 
interests us, that satire will be read. But the Cookes, 
Curlls, Concanens, and other personages of the Dunciad 
are to us simple names which suggest no ideas ; and even 
the intellectual mastery of the author, great though it be, 
is hardly so evident to us as the frantic vindictiveness 
which strains every nerve to say the most wounding and 
humiliating things. 

The famous Essay on Man appeared anonymously in 
1732. It was the fruit of Pope's familiar intercourse with 
the sceptic Lord Bolingbroke, and reflects in the popular 
literature the opinions of a philosophical school presently 
to be noticed. No poem in the language contains a greater 
number of single lines which have passed into proverbs.* 
The various satirical pieces known as the Moral Essays 
and the Initiations of Horace, with Prologue and Epi- 
logue, were published between the years 1731 and 1738. 

* For example — 

" A mighty maze, but not without a plan." 

" The proper study of mankind is man." 

" The enormous faith of many made for one," 

" Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow ; 

" The rest is all but leather or prunella." 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God." 

"Damn'd to everlasting fame." 

" But looks through Nature up to Nature's God." 

" From grave to gay, from lively to severe," &c., &c. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 163 

A fourth book was added to the Dunciad in 1742, and the 
whole poem was re-cast, so as to assign the enviable dis- 
tinction of king of the dunces to Colly Gibber, the poet 
laureate, instead of Theobald, Pope died in May, 1744. 

Politically, Pope occupied through life a position of 
much dignity. Both Halifax and Secretary Craggs desired 
to pension him, but he declined their offers. Thanks to 
Homer, he could say truly — 

"I live and thrive, 
Indebted to no prince or peer alive." 

His neutral position is again indicated in the lines * — 

"In moderation placing all my glory, \/ 

While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory." 

But in principle, it is clear that he infinitely preferred 
the politics of Locke to those of Filmer, This is proved 
by such lines as — 

" For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful day, 
'Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway 

******* 

May yon, my Cam and Isis, preach it long, 
' The right divine of kings to govern wrong.' " 

On the other hand, some of his dearest and most inti- 
mate friends, as Swift and Bolingbroke, were Tories. 

In religious belief, Pope was of course professedly a 
Catholic, but there is scarcely a page of his poetry in 
which the leaven of that scepticism which pervaded the 
society in which he moved may not be traced. At the 
court of the Prince of Wales at Eiehmond, where Pope was 
a frequent and a welcome guest, free-thinking was in 
favour, and Tindal, the Deist, was zealously patronised : — 

" But art thou one whom new opinions sway, 
One who believes where Tindal leads the way ? " 

The religious indifferentism which Pope assumed had 
undoubtedly many conveniences, in an age when serious. 

M 2 



J 



164 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and bond-fide Catholicism was repressed by every kind of 
vexatious penal disability, and the literary circle in which 
he lived was composed exclusively of Protestants or unbe- 
lievers. He styled himself — 

" Papist or Protestant, or both between, 
Like good Erasmus, in an honest mean." 

Perhaps, too, it may be said, that, independently of ex- 
ternal influences, his own highly intellectualised nature 
predisposed him to set reason above faith, to value great 
thinkers more than great saints. But he would not let 
himself be driven or persuaded into any act of formal 
apostasy. When, upon the death of his father, in 1717, his 
friend Bishop Atterbury hinted that he was now free to 
consult his worldly interests by joining the established 
church, Pope absolutely rejected the proposal — upon 
singular and non-Catholic grounds, it is true — but so 
decidedly as to make it impossible that the advice should 
be repeated. As he grew older, Pope's sympathies with 
the free-thinking school, at least with the rank and file of 
their writers, seem to have declined ; very disrespectful 
mention is made of them in the Dunciad. Their spokes- 
man is thus introduced in the fourth book : — 

" ' Be that my task,' replies a gloomy clerk, 
Sworn foe to mystery, yet divinely dark ; 
Whose pious hope aspires to see the day 
"When moral evidence shall quite decay " &e. 

Finally, whatever may have been the aberrations of his 
life, its closing scene was one of faith and pious resigna- 
tion. The priest who administered to him the last sacra- 
ments rt came out from the dying man, . . . penetrated 
to the last degree with the state of mind in which he found 
his penitent, resigned, and wrapt up in the love of Grod 
and man." * Bolingbroke, like the friends of Beranger, on 

* Carruthers' Life of Pope. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY. 165 

a like occasion, is said to have flown into a great fit of 
passion at hearing of the priest being called in. 

So much space has been given to Pope that we can 
notice but very briefly the remaining poet& of his time. 
The reign of Anne was considered in the last century to 
be the Augustan age of English literature ; nor, when we 
remember the great number of poets who then flourished, 
the high patronage which many of them received, and the 
extent to which literary tastes then pervaded the upper 
ranks of society, shall we pronounce the term altogether 
misplaced. At any rate, by contrast to the middle 
period of the century, its opening was bright indeed. 
Johnson, in the Life of Prior, observes : — " Everything 
has its day. Through the reigns of William and Anne no 
prosperous event passed undignified by poetry. In the 
last war [the Seven Years' War], when France was disgraced 
and overpowered in every quarter of the globe, when 
Spain, coming to her assistance, only shared her calamities, 
and the name of an Englishman was reverenced through 
Europe, no poet was heard amidst the general acclamation ; 
the fame of our councillors and heroes was entrusted to 
the gazetteer." The genius of Chatham — the heroism of 
Wolfe — are unsung to this day. 

Addison, the son of a Westmoreland clergyman, was 
singled out, while yet at Oxford, as a fit object for Grovern- 
ment patronage, and sent to travel with a pension. In 
that learned, but then disloyal, University, a sincere and 
clever Whig was a phenomenon so rare, that the Whio- 
ministry seem to have thought they could not do too much 
to encourage the growth of the species. While on the 
continent, Addison produced several heroic poems in praise 
of King William, written in the heroic couplet, in which 
Dryden had achieved so much. In 1704 he celebrated in 
The Campaign the battle of Blenheim. For this he was 
rewarded with the post of Commissioner of Appeals. Addi- 
son also wrote a few hymns, the simple beauty of which 

M 3 



166 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

forms a marked contrast to the stiff and laboured subli- 
mity of his heroics. His dramatic and prose works will be 
noticed presently. 

The poet G-ay was also dependent on patrons, but they 
were in his case private noblemen, not ministers of State. 
Gray's Fables is a book which most of us have read with 
pleasure in early life. This kindly-natured man, whom 
Pope describes as — 

" In wit a man, simplicity a child," 

belonged to the race of careless, thoughtless poets described 
by Horace, who have little idea how to get on in the 
world ; and, but for the kind interference of the Duke and 
Duchess of Queensberry, who took him into their house 
during the latter years of his life, and managed his affairs 
for him, his embarrassments might have altogether over- 
whelmed him. He died at the early age of forty-four. 

Parnell is now only remembered as the author of the 
Hermit. He was the friend of Harley, Earl of Oxford, to 
whom Pope sent the edition of his poems, of which he 
superintended the publication after his death, recommend- 
ing them to the fallen statesman in a few graceful lines, 
musical but weighty, such as Pope alone could write. 

Swift, to whom Pope dedicated the Dunciad, in the 
well-known lines — 

" Oh. ! thou, whatever title please thine ear, 
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver ; 
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, 
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair ; 
Or praise the court, or magnify mankind, 
Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind,"— 

was a copious writer in verse no less than in prose. His 
poems extend to nearly twice the length of those of 
Thomson, and consist of Odes, Epistles, Epigrams, Songs, 
Satires, and Epitaphs, besides the poem entitled Cadenus 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 167 

and Vanessa. There is much that is objectionable in 
them, both in matter and form : in matter, because they 
exemplify, more signally than even the prose writings, the 
grossness which disfigured this powerful mind ; in form, 
because most of them are in octo-syllabic verse — a metre 
which it is very difficult to keep from degenerating into a 
jingling doggrel, even if the greatest pains be taken — 
pains which Swift did not take. 

James Thomson, the author of the Seasons, was the son 
of a Scotch Presbyterian minister. Showing a bias to 
literature, he was advised to repair to the great stage of 
London, 6( a place too wide for the operation of petty com- 
petition and private malignity, where merit might soon 
become conspicuous, and would find friends as soon as it 
became reputable to befriend it."* The proceeds of the sale 
of Winter were all that he had to depend upon for some 
time after his arrival in the metropolis. By degrees he 
acquired a reputation, and a fair share of patronage, from 
which only his invincible laziness prevented him from 
reaping greater benefit. Pope countenanced his tragedy 
of Agamemnon by coming to it the first night, and ex- 
pressed his personal regard for him in a poetical epistle. 
Besides the Seasons, he wrote Liberty — a tedious, high- 
flown production, which no one read, even at its first ap- 
pearance ; Britannia, an attack on Sir Eobert Walpole's 
government ; and The Castle of Indolence. After Walpole's 
downfall, he obtained a sinecure place through the influence 
of his friend Lyttelton, but did not long enjoy it, dying, 
after a short illness, in 1748. 

Matthew Prior, a native of Dorsetshire, from an obscure 
origin, rose to considerable eminence, both literary and 
political. In early life he was a Whig, and first came into 
notice as the author, jointly with Charles Montague, of 

* Johnson. 
M 4 



168 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the City Mouse and Country Mouse. In 1701 he ratted 
to the Tories, and made himself so useful to the party as to 
be selected to manage several delicate negotiations with 
foreign powers, in particular that which resalted in the 
Treaty of Utrecht. His behaviour on this occasion exposed 
him, though it would appear unjustly, to heavy charges from 
the Whig ministry, which came into power in 1714, and 
he was thrown into prison and kept there for more than 
two years. His old associates probably considered him as 
a renegade, and dealt out to him an unusual measure of 
severity. His works consist of tales, love-verses, occa- 
sional pieces, and two long poems called Alma and Solo- 
mon. Of Alma, a satire, Pope said that it was the only 
piece of Prior's composition of which he should wish to be 
the author. Solomon is a tedious didactic poem, in heroic 
verse. 

Of "well-natured Garth," author of the mock-heroic 
poem, the Dispensary, the idea of which he took from 
Boileau's Lutrin, we can only say that he was a physician, 
and a staunch adherent to revolution principles during the 
reign of Anne, for which he was rewarded with a due share 
of professional emolument, when his party came into 
power in 1714. He was an original member of the Kit-cat 
Club, (i generally mentioned as a set of wits, in reality, the 
patriots that saved Britain."* Sir Eichard Blackmore 
was another patriotic poet. He was the city physician, 
and was knighted by King William. He wrote four long 
epic poems, the best of which, Prince Arthur, is below 
mediocrity, while the three others, King Arthur, King 
Alfred, and Eliza, are simply unreadable. His chief claim 
to notice is that he became a butt for the satire both of 
Dryden and Pope. Tickell, already mentioned as the 
protege of Addison, wrote the well-known Elegy upon his 
friend, and several minor pieces. Glover, author of the 

* Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. J 69 

short and spirited epic, Leonidas, and of the noble ballad 
of Hosier's Ghost, devoted his thoughts, in middle life, to 
questions of trade and finance ; otherwise, the great exploits 
of the Seven Years' War might not have remained uncele- 
brated. Isaac Watts, author of the well-known collection 
of hymns for children, was a dissenting minister, who, 
having fallen into weak health, resided, during the last 
thirty-six years of his life, in the house of Sir Thomas 
Abney, at Stoke Newington, where he died in 1748. 



The Drama, 1700—1745 : — Addison, Rowe, &c. Prose Co- 
medy : — Farquhar, Vanbrugh, &c. ; The Beggars' Opera. 

Since the appearance of Congr eve's Mourning Bride, 
a tragedy of the old school, no tragic work had been pro- 
duced deserving of mention up to the year 1713. By that 
time the classic drama of France, the masterpieces of 
Corneille and Eacine, had become thoroughly known and 
appreciated in England ; and, in the absence #f any native 
writers of great original power, it was natural that our 
dramatists, both in tragedy and comedy, should model 
their plays upon the French pattern. This is the case 
with Addison's celebrated tragedy of Cato. It was con- 
ceived and partly written, according to Cibber*, in the 
year 1703; but Addison had laid it aside, and only 
brought it on the stage in 1713, at the urgeut request of 
his political associates. Cato is in form a strictly classic 
play ; the unities are observed and all admixture of comic 
matter is avoided, as carefully as in any play of Eacine's. 
The brilliant prologue was written by Pope. The play 
met with signal success, because it was applauded by both 
political parties, the Whigs cheering the frequent allusions 
to liberty and patriotism, the Tories echoing back the 

* Cibber' s Apology* 



170 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

cheers, because they did not choose to be thought more 
friendly to tyranny than their opponents. 

Kowe produced several tolerable tragedies, one of 
which, the Fair Penitent, is a re -cast of Massingers 
Fatal Dowry. His Jane Shore is an attempt to write a 
tragedy in the manner of Shakespeare. Thomson, the 
author of the Seasons, wrote the tragedy of Sophonisba, 
in the style of Cato. The success of this play is said to 
have been marred by a ridiculous circumstance. There is 
an absurdly flat line, 

" Oh Sophonisba ! Sophonisba, ! " 

at the recital of which a wag in the pit called out 

" Oh Jemmy Thomson ! Jemmy Thomson, ! " 

The parody was for some days in everyone's mouth, and 
made the continued representation of the play impossible. 
Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, wrote several 
tragedies, among which Revenge, produced in 1721, still 
keeps possession of the stage. 

The comedy of manners, in prose, of which the first 
suggestion clearly came from the admirable works of 
Moliere, had been successfully tried, as we have seen, by 
Etherege, Wycherley, and Congreve, in the preceding 
period. To the same school of writers belonged, in this 
period, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, and Cibber. Farquhar, a 
native of Londonderry, is the author of Sir Harry Wildair 
and The Beaux' Stratagem, the latter written on the bed of 
sickness to which neglect and want had brought him, and 
from which he sank into an untimely grave, in his thirtieth 
year. Sir JohnVanbrugh wrote the famous comedies of 
The Provoked Wife and The Provoked Husband, the latter 
of which was afterwards enlarged and improved by Cibber. 
Colley Cibber, a Grerman by extraction, was not only a 
dramatist, but an actor and theatrical manager. He has 
left us, in the Apology for his own Life, published in 1740, 



EIGHTEENTH CEXTURY. 171 

an amusing account of his own bustling, frivolous life, as 
well as of the state of the stage from the Eestoration down 
to his own time, adding life-like sketches of the principal 
actors and actresses. Mrs. Centlivre produced a number of 
comedies in the same period, which commanded a tempo- 
rary popularity. 

In the work of Cibber, just mentioned, there is a 
complaint that the continental taste for opera had lately 
extended to England, to the detriment of the legitimate 
drama. Gay's Beggars' Opera was a clever attempt 
to gratify this taste by an operatic production truly 
British in every sense. The subject is the unhappy loves 
of Capt. Macheath, the chief of a gang of highwaymen, 
and Polly Peachum, the daughter of a worthy who com- 
bines the functions of thief-taker and receiver of stolen 
goods. The attractiveness of the piece was greatly en- 
hanced by the introduction of a number of beautiful 
popular airs ; indeed, but for these, the coarseness of the 
plot and the grossness of much of the language would 
have, ere now, condemned it, in spite of all its wit and 
drollery. There is no recitative, as in a modern opera ; its 
place is supplied by colloquial prose. The opera was first 
produced, with enormous applause, in 1727. 



Learning, 1700 — 1745 : — Bentley, Lardner. 

The greatest of English scholars flourished at the same 
time with Pope and Swift, and fell under the satire of both. 
Eichard Bentley was a native of Yorkshire, and received 
his education at Cambridge, where he rose to be Master 
of Trinity College in 1700. The famous controversy 
between him and Boyle on the Epistles of Phalaris oc- 
curred in the last years of the seventeenth century, but 
we delayed to notice it until we could present a general 
view of Bentley's literary career. The dispute arose in 



172 HISTORY OF ENGLISH ' LITERATURE. 

this way : — Sir William Temple, taking up the discussion 
which had been carried on between Boileau and Perrault 
on the comparative merits of ancient and modern authors, 
sided with Boileau against the moderns, and, amongst 
other things, adduced the Epistles of Phalaris (which he 
supposed to be the genuine production of the tyrant of 
Agrigentum, who roasted Perillus in a brazen bull), as an 
instance of a work which, in its kind, was unapproached 
by any modern writer. Dr. Aldrich, author of the well- 
known Treatise on Logic, who was then Dean of Christ- 
Church, was induced, by Temple's praise, to determine upon 
preparing a new edition of the Epistles for the press. 
He committed this task to young Charles Boyle, great 
nephew of the celebrated natural philosopher, Eobert 
Boyle. A MS. in the King's Library, of which Bentley 
was then librarian, had to be consulted. Bentley, though 
he lent the MS., is said to have behaved ungraciously in 
the matter, and refused sufficient time for its collation. 
In the preface to his edition of the Epistles, which ap- 
peared in 1695, Boyle complained of the alleged discour- 
tesy. Bentley then examined the Epistles carefully ; and 
the result was that when Wotton, in reply to Temple, pub- 
lished his Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, 
a dissertation was appended to the work, in which Bentley 
demonstrated that the Epistles could not possibly be 
the work of Phalaris, but were the forgery of a later age. 
In proving his point he was lavish of the supercilious and 
contemptuous language to which his arrogant temper 
naturally impelled him. Nettled at this sharp attack, the 
Oxford scholars clubbed their wits and their learning 
together ; Atterbury, Smallridge, and Friend, had each a 
hand in the composition of the reply, which, published still 
under the name of Boyle, was expected to establish Pha- 
laris in the authorship of the Epistles, and to cover Bentley 
with confusion. For a long time the great critic was 
silent ; he was supposed to be vanquished, and to feel that 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 173 

he was so. But in 1699 appeared the Dissertation on 
the Epistles of Phalaris, the most profound monument of 
erudite criticism that has ever proceeded from an English 
pen. By an analysis of the language of the Epistles, 
Bentley proved that they were written, not in Sicilian, but 
in Attic, Greek, and that of a period many centimes later 
than the age of Phalaris ; while, by bringing to bear his 
intimate knowledge of the whole range of Greek literature 
upon various topographical and historical statements which 
they contained, he demonstrated that towns were named 
which were not built, and events alluded to which had not 
occurred, in the life-time of their reputed author. The 
controversy was now at an end ; his opponents promised a 
reply, but it was never forthcoming. 

Bentley, however, with all his wit and penetration, was 
without that realising power of imagination, which the 
greatest German critics of our days, such as the brothers 
Grimm, have united to the former qualities ; he was an 
acute, but not a genial critic. His edition of the Paradise 
Lost, published in 1732, is an astonishing production. 
Pope's lines upon it, in the Dunciad — 

" Not that I'd tear all beauties from his book, 
Like slashing Bentley, with his desperate hook," 

are not too severe. Among his other works are, editions 
of Horace and Terence, to the latter of which is prefixed 
a valuable dissertation on the Terentian metres. 

Nathaniel Lardner, a dissenting divine, published, 
between 1730 and 1757, a bulky work, the fruit of great 
learning and painstaking research, entitled the Credibility 
of the Gospel History. Lardner was himself an Arian, 
but his book furnished Paley afterwards with the materials 
for his popular Vieiv of the Evidences of Christianity. 



174 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Prose Fiction, Oratory, Pamphlets, Miscellanies, 
1700— 1745: — Swift, Defoe, Steele, Addison. 

Under the first head we have Swift's satirical romance, 
the Travels of Lemuel Gulliver, including the Voyages to 
Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the 
Houyhnhnms. The first sketch of the work occurs in 
Martinus Scriblerus, the joint production of Pope, Swift, 
and Arbuthnot, But Swift soon took the sole execution 
of the idea into his own hands, and renouncing personal 
satire, to which Pope was so much addicted, made this 
extraordinary work the vehicle for his generalising contempt 
and hatred of mankind. This tone of mind, as Scott 
observes, gains upon the author as he proceeds, until, in 
the Voyage to the Houyhnhnms, he can only depict his 
fellow-men under the degrading and disgusting lineaments 
of the Yahoos. The True History of Lucian and Eabelais' 
Voyage of Pantagruel furnished Swift with a few sugges- 
tions, but, in the main, this is a purely original work. 

Internal peace and security, prolonged through many 
years, while enormously augmenting the national wealth, 
occasioned the rise, about the middle of the present period, 
of that large class of readers to whom so much of modern 
literature is addressed — persons having leisure to read, 
and money to buy books, but who demand from literature 
rather amusement than instruction, and care less for being 
excited to think than for being made to enjoy. The stage, 
especially after Jeremy Collier's attacks upon it, became 
ever less competent to satisfy the wants of this class, or 
gratify this new kind of intellectual appetite. The peri- 
odical miscellany, the rise of which will be described 
presently, was the first kind of provision made for this 
purpose. When Addison and his numerous imitators had 
written themselves out, and the style had become tiresome, 
a new and more permanent provision arose in the modern 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 175 

novel. The first of the English novelists was Daniel 
Defoe, born in 1661. After a long and busy career as a 
political writer, he was verging on his sixtieth year, when, 
as a sort of relaxation from his serious labours, he tried 
his hand at prose fiction. The Life and Adventures of 
Robinson Crusoe, founded on the true story of Alexander 
Selkirk, a sailor cast by a shipwreck on the uninhabited 
island of Juan Fernandez, appeared in 1719. It was 
followed by Religious Courtship, the History of Colonel 
Jack, the Memoirs of a Cavalier, &c. It was Defoe's 
humour to throw the utmost possible air of reality 
over every one of his fictions, so as to palm it off on the 
reader as a narrative of facts. Thus the famous physician, 
Dr. Mead, is said to have been taken in by the pretended 
Journal of the Great Plague, and Lord Chatham to have 
recommended the Memoirs of a Cavalier as the best 
authentic account of the civil war. 

No oratory worthy of notice dates from this period. 
On the other hand, pamphleteers and political satirists 
abounded. On the Whig side, Defoe was so keenly ironical, 
that his banter was mistaken for serious argument, and led 
to his being lodged in the pillory for writing the Shortest 
Method with the Dissenters. From the same cause, several 
of his other political writings were at the time considered 
libellous, and exposed him to persecution ; to escape which, 
he, late in life, renounced political discussion, and indem- 
nified liimself for being debarred from describing the busy 
world of fact by creating a new world, in semblance hardly 
less real, out of his own prolific fancy. On the Tory side 
more powerful pens were engaged. No pamphlet ever pro- 
duced a greater immediate effect than Swift's Conduct of 
the Allies, written in 1712, in order to persuade the nation 
to a peace. " It is boasted that between November and 
January eleven thousand were sold ; a great number at 
that time, when we were not yet a nation of readers. To 
its propagation certainly no agency of power or influence 



176 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

was wanting. It furnished arguments for conversation, 
speeches for debate, and materials for parliamentary re- 
solutions." * This was followed by Reflections on the 
Barrier Treaty ', published later in the same year, and The 
Public Spirit of the Whigs, written in answer to Steele's 
Crisis, in 1714. In all these productions Swift, who had 
commenced life as a Whig, writes with the usual rancour 
of a political renegade. Differently aimed, but equally 
effective, were the famous Drapier's Letters. The follow- 
ing were the circumstances which gave occasion to them : — 
Since the Treaty of Limerick, in 1691, Ireland had 
been treated in many respects as a conquered country. 
This was indeed unreservedly and openly the case, so far 
as the Catholic population were concerned ; but the Irish 
Protestants also were compelled to share in the national 
humiliation. When some enterprising men had esta- 
blished, about the year 1 700, an Irish woollen manufacture, 
the commercial jealousies of England were aroused, and 
an act was passed, which, by prohibiting the exportation of 
Irish woollens to any other country but England, de- 
stroyed the rising industry. This was but one out of a 
number of oppressive acts under which Irishmen chafed, 
but in vain. Swift's haughty temper rose against the in- 
dignities offered to his country, and he only waited for an 
opportunity to strike a blow. That opportunity was given 
by the proceedings connected with Wood's contract for 
supplying a copper coinage, to circulate only in Ireland. 
Commercially speaking, it was ultimately proved that the 
new coinage was calculated to benefit Ireland, not to injure 
her. The coins were assayed at the Mint, under the superin- 
tendence of no less a person than Sir Isaac Newton, and 
proved to be of the proper weight and fineness. But the way 
in which the thing was done was, and deservedly, the cause 
of offence. The privilege of coining money, which had 

* Johnson's Life of Swift. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 177 

always been considered to appertain to the royal preroga- 
tive, was, in this instance, without the consent, or even 
knowledge, of the Lord Lieutenant or the Irish Privy 
Council, delegated to an obscure Englishman, who had 
obtained the preference over other competitors by paying 
court to the king's mistress. It was this heaping of insult 
upon injury which excited the ferment in the Irish mind, 
of which the memorable Drapier availed himself. The 
first letter appeared some time in the year 1724. In it 
and the two following letters Swift artfully confined him- 
self to those objections and accusations which were open 
to the perception of all classes of the people. He declared 
that the new coins were of base metal ; — he pulled Wood's 
character to pieces ; — he asserted that the inevitable con- 
sequence of the introduction of the new coinage would 
be the disappearance of all the gold and silver from 
Ireland. Such charges as these came home to the feelings 
and understanding of the lowest and most ignorant of his 
readers, and the excitement which they caused was tremen- 
dous. In the fourth and following letters Swift followed 
up the attack by opening up the general question of the 
wrongs and humiliations which Ireland had to suffer from 
England. A proclamation was vainly issued by the Irish 
Grovernment, offering a reward of 300?. to any one who 
would disclose the author of the Drapier's fourth letter. 
The danger was great, but Sir Eobert Walpole was equal 
to the occasion. He first tried a compromise, but without 
success, and then wisely cancelled the obnoxious contract. 
From this period to his death Swift was the idol of the 
Irish people. He said once to a Protestant dignitary, in 
the course of an altercation, " If I were but to hold up 
my little finger, the mob would tear you to pieces." 

Arbuthnot, the joint author, with Pope and Swift, of 
Martin-us Scriblerus, of whom Pope spoke as his " guide, 
philosopher, and friend," and Swift exclaimed, "Oh, if 
the world had a dozen Arbuthnots, I would burn my 



178 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

[Gulliver's] Travels!" — wrote, about the year 1709, the 
telling political satire, named the History of John Bull, 
levelled against the Grodolphin ministry. 

From this period dates the rise of the periodical mis- 
cellany.* To Eichard Steele, an Irishman, who was em- 
ployed by the Whig Government to write the Gazette 
during the Spanish succession war, the nature of his em- 
ployment seems to have suggested the design of the Toiler. 
To this periodical Addison soon began to contribute papers, 
and continued to write for it nearly to the end. The first 
number appeared on the 22nd April, 1709, the last on the 
2nd January, 1711; three numbers were issued weekly. The 
Toiler succeeded so well, that its conductors soon followed 
it up with the more celebrated Spectator, to which Addi- 
son was the chief contributor. A number came out every 
morning (except Sundays); the first was published in 
March, 1711, the last on the 6th December, 1712. "The 
Toiler and Spectator" says Johnson, " were published at 
a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each 
with plausible declarations, and each, perhaps, without any 
distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation. 
To minds heated with political contest, they supplied cooler 
and more inoffensive reflections ; and it is said by Ad- 
dison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible 
influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught 
the frolic and the gay to unite merriment with decency — 
an effect which they can never wholly lose while they 
continue to be among the first books by which both sexes 
are initiated in the elegancies of knowledge." "These 
works," he proceeds, " adjusted, like Casa f, the unsettled 
practice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness ; 

* Usually, but not very correctly, called the periodical essay ; a word 
which can hardly be stretched so as to include the allegories, sketches 
of manners and characters, tales, gossiping letters, &c, with which the 
Tatler and Spectator abound. 

t Author of Galateo, or the Art of Living in the World. Died in 1556. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 179 

and, like La Bruyere, exhibited the characters and manners 
of the age. The personages introduced in these papers 
were not merely ideal ; they were then known, and con- 
spicuous in various stations." 

In 1713, another daily paper, called the Guardian, to 
which Addison gave great assistance,Avas published by Steele. 
" The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by 
one of the letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guar- 
dian by a hand." In 1714, the Spectator was resumed 
and carried on for about six months, at the rate of three 
papers a week. Of the eighty numbers published, Tickell 
has ascribed to Addison twenty-three. These additional 
numbers were afterwards collected into an eighth volume, 
which is, perhaps, more valuable than any of those that 
went before it. At the end of 1715 Addison commenced 
writing the Freeholder, at the rate of two papers a week, 
and continued it till the middle of the next year. (i This 
was undertaken in defence of the established Government; 
sometimes with argument, sometimes with mirth. In ar- 
gument, he had many equals ; but his humour was singular 
and matchless, Bigotry itself must be delighted with the 
Tory fox-hunter." * 



Works of Satire and Humour : — Swift. 

It will be remembered f that Swift's patron, Sir William 
Temple, took a leading part in the discussion upon the rela- 
tive merits of ancient and modern authors. Swift himself 
struck in on the same side, in the brilliant satire of the 
Battle of the Books, which was written in 1697, but not 
published till 1704. In this controversy the great wits, 
both in France and England, were all of one mind in 
claiming the palm for the ancients. It was, perhaps, with 



Johnson. + See p. 172. 



180 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

some reference to it that Pope, in the Essay on Criticism, 
burst forth into the magnificent encomium in honour of 
the great poets of antiquity, beginning, 

" Still green with bays each ancient altar stands," &c. 

In the reaction towards the mediaeval and Grothic an- 
tiquity, which marked the close of the last and the begin- 
ning of the present century, this enthusiasm for Greece 
and Eome was much abated. At present, there are symp- 
toms of a partial revival of the feeling. 

The Tale of a Tub was also published in 1704, though 
written in 1696. The title is explained by Swift to mean, 
that, as sailors throw out a tub to a whale, to keep him 
amused, and prevent him from running foul of their ship, 
so, in this treatise, his object is to afford such temporary 
diversion to the wits and free-thinkers of the day (who 
drew their arguments from the Leviathan of Hobbes) as 
may restrain them from injuring the State by propagating 
wild theories in religion and politics. The allegory of the 
three brothers, and the general character and tendency of 
this extraordinary book, will be examined in the second 
part of the present work. 



History, 1700— 1745 :— Burnet, Rapin. 

Burnet's History of his Own Times, closing with the 
year 1713, was published soon after his death in 1715. 
Burnet was a Scotchman, and a very decided Whig. 
Exiled by James II., he attached himself to the Prince of 
Orange, and was actively engaged in all the intrigues 
which paved the way for the Kevolution. His character 
has been ably drawn by Macaulay in his History of Eng- 
land. William rewarded his services by appointing him 
bishop of Salisbury. He was a copious but a careless 
writer. A passage in his History of the Reformation of 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 181 

the Church of England, the last volume of which appeared 
in 1715, brought him into collision — impar congressus 
Achilli — with the great Bossuet. The History of his 
Own Times, though ill arranged and inaccurate, is yet, 
owing to its contemporary character, a valuable original 
source of information for the period between the Kesto- 
ration and 1713. Bapin, a French refugee, published in 
1725 the best complete history of England that had as 
yet appeared. It was translated twice, and long remained 
a standard work. 

Of the theology and philosophy of the period we re- 
serve our sketch till after we have examined the progress 
of general literature between 1745 and 1800. 



Johnson. Poetry, 1745 — 1800: — Gray, Cowper, Surns, &c. 

The grand yet grotesque figure of Samuel Johnson 
holds the central place among the writers of the second 
half of the eighteenth century. In all literary reunions he 
took the undisputed lead, by the power and brilliancy of 
his conversation, which, indeed, as recorded by Boswell, 
is a more valuable possession than any, or all, of his pub- 
lished works. His influence upon England was eminently 
conservative ; his manly good sense, his moral courage, 
his wit, readiness, and force as a disputant, were all ex- 
erted to keep English society where it was, and prevent 
the ideas of Voltaire and Kosseau from gaining ground. 
His success was signal. Not that there were wanting on 
the other side either gifted minds, or an impressible 
audience ; Hume, Gibbon, and Priestley were sceptics of 
no mean order of ability ; and Boswell's own example * 
shows that, had there been no counteracting force at work, 
an enthusiastic admiration for Eousseau might easily have 
become fashionable in England. But while Johnson lived 

* See Hume's Autobiography. 
N 3 



182 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and talked, the sophistry of the infidel and revolutionary 
party was continually foiled and shamed. After his death 
the writings of Burke carried on the sort of conservative 
propaganda which he had initiated. 

Johnson was born at Lichfield, in the year 1709. His 
father was a native of Derbyshire, but had settled in Lich- 
field as a bookseller. After having received the rudiments 
of a classical education at various country schools, he was 
entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, in the year 1728. 
His father about this time suffered heavy losses in busi- 
ness, in consequence of which Johnson had to struggle 
for many years against the deepest poverty. Nor were 
either his mental or bodily constitution so healthful and 
vigorous as to compensate for the frowns of fortune. He 
seems to have inherited from his mother's family the 
disease of scrofula, or the king's evil, for which he was 
taken up to London, at the age of three years, to be 
touched by Queen Anne — the ancient superstition con- 
cerning the efficacy of the royal touch not having then 
wholly died out. His mind was a prey during life to that 
most mysterious malady, hypochondria, which exhibited 
itself in a morbid melancholy, varying at different times 
in intensity, but never completely shaken off — and also 
in an incessant haunting fear of insanity. Under the com- 
plicated miseries of his condition, religion, such as he 
knew it, sustained him, and deserted him not, till, at the 
age of seventy-five, full of years and honours, his much- 
tried and long-suffering soul was released. In his boy- 
hood, he tells us he had got into a habit of wandering 
about the fields reading, on Sundays, instead of going to 
church, and the religious lessons early taught him by his 
mother were considerably effaced; but at Oxford, the 
work of that excellent man, though somewhat cloudy 
writer, William Law, entitled A Serious Call to a Holy 
Life, fell into his hands, and made so profound an impres- 
sion upon him, that, from that time forward, though he 



EIGHTEENTH CEXTURY. 183 

used to lament the shortcomings in his practice, religion 
was ever, in the main, the actuating principle of his life. 

After leaving . Oxford, he held a situation as under- 
master in a grammar-school for some months. But this 
was a kind of work for which he was utterly unfitted, and 
he was compelled to give it up. He went to Birmingham, 
where he obtained some trifling literary work. In 1735 
he married a Mrs. Porter, a widow, and soon after, as a 
means of subsistence, opened a boarding school, in which, 
however, he failed. He now resolved to try his fortune in 
London. He settled there with his wife in 1737, and 
supported himself for many years by writing — princi- 
pally by his contributions to the Gentleman's Magazine, 
which had been established by Cave about the year 1730, 
and is still carried on. His Plan of a Dictionary of the 
English Language was published in 1 747. The price stipu- 
lated for from the booksellers was 1,575/., and the work was 
to be completed in three years. The Rambler, a series of 
papers on miscellaneous subjects, on the model of the Spec- 
tator, was commenced by him in 1750, and concluded in 
1752. This and various other works, which appeared from 
time to time, joined to his unrivalled excellence as a talker, 
which made his company eagerly sought after by persons of 
all ranks, gradually won for Johnson a considerable reputa- 
tion; and, after the accession of Greorge III., he received, 
through the kindness of Lord Bute, a pension of 300?. a 
year. This was in 1762. He continued to reside in 
London — with but short intervals, on the occasions of his 
tours to the Hebrides, to Wales, and to France — till his 
death in 1784. 

Johnson's works — excepting the Dictionary, a tragedy 
called Irene, a few poems, the Lives of the Poets, and a 
short novel, the famous Rasselas — consist of essays very 
multifarious in their scope, discussing questions of politics, 
manners, trade, agriculture, art, and criticism. The bulk 
of these were composed for the Rambler, the Idler, and 

N 4 



184 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the Adventurer. His prose style, cumbrous, antithetical, 
and pompous, yet in his hands possessing generally great 
dignity and strength, and sometimes even, as in Rasselas, 
rising to remarkable beauty and nobleness, was so influ- 
ential upon the men of his day that it caused a complete 
revolution, for a time, in English style, and by no means 
for the better ; since inferior men, though they could easily 
appropriate its peculiarities or defects — its long words, 
its balanced clauses, its laboured antitheses — could not 
with equal ease emulate its excellences. 

Among Johnson's poems, the satire called London, an 
imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, and the beautiful 
didactic poem on The Vanity of Human Wishes, are the 
most deserving of notice. 

Gray, the son of a scrivener of London, was educated 
and lived the greater part of his life at Cambridge. In 
the small volume of his poems there are several pieces 
which have gained a permanent place in our literature. 
As a writer, he was indolent and fastidious ; to the former 
quality we probably owe it that his writings are so few, to 
the latter that many of them are so excellent. The famous 
Elegy in a Country Churchyard was first published in a 
magazine in 1750. 

Churchill, a bold and reckless satirist, was, in his day — 
so fallacious often are contemporary judgments — ranked 
with Pope and Dryden! After leaving Cambridge he 
took orders, but soon after threw off the gown, and com- 
menced a life of riotous profligacy, which was closed by 
his early death at the age of thirty-three. Among his 
poems is an Epistle to Hogarth, occasioned by a caricature 
from that inimitable pencil, representing Churchill as a 
bear, in full canonicals, drinking a pot of porter. His 
personal satires, levelled against politicians, actors, artists, 
and Scotchmen, were eagerly read and enjoyed by the 
public of his day. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 185 

Collins, the author of the Odes to the Passions, Shen- 
stone*, Akensidef, and Masonf, wrote about the middle 
of the century. But it was essentially a prosaic period. 
Young, who lived to a great age, and whose Night 
Thoughts began to appear in 1742, wrote his poem of Re- 
signation in 1762, when he was past eighty. He has 
been eulogised as a " Christian philosopher ; " but his 
character had in it no trace of self-denial or nobleness. 
In his forty-eighth year he took orders with an eye to 
preferment; nor did Dryden, in a more servile age, ever 
offer falser or more fulsome adulation to the Stuart kings 
than Young, in his Odes, lavishes upon Greorge II. 

Next to Johnson and Burke, no name stands higher on 
the list of writers who flourished between 1750 and 1780 
tlian that of Oliver Goldsmith. His earliest poem, the 
Traveller, is, both in form and tone, much in the manner 
of Pope, whose influence, indeed, over all the poets of the 
century, excepting Burns, is abundantly evident. Grold- 
smith gradually perfected a manner of his own, which, 
though not of the highest order, gives to his few poems 
the inimitable grace of nature and stamp of originality. 
The Deserted Village, which appeared in 1770, contains 
the well-known and oft-quoted lines, beginning — 

"111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey," &c. 

The gentle heart and refined feeling of the unhappy 
Cowper enriched our literature with much beautiful and 
pathetic poetry. Of a noble family, he was nominated, 
after a few years vainly spent in studying for the bar, to a 
clerkship in the House of Lords ; but, having to face the 
ordeal of a personal appearance before the House, previ- 
ously to entering upon his duties, he was overcome by 

* Author of the Schoolmistress, the Pastoral Ballad, &e. 

f Author of the Pleasures of Imagination. 

\ Author of Ms, Elfrida, and Caractacus, and minor poems, 



186 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

nervous terror at the prospect, and actually attempted 
suicide ! The appointment was of course given up ; and, 
after recovering from the temporary derangement that his 
mind had suffered, Cowper sought that life of retirement 
and seclusion, which he never afterwards quitted. His 
first poems were not published till 1782, when he was past 
fifty — having been written rather to divert his mind 
from preying upon itself, than from the imperious impulse 
of nature, or the desire of fame. This volume contained 
Table Talk, Truth, the Progress of Error, &c. ; and its 
contents are marked generally by a tone of earnest protest 
against the infidelity which the school of Voltaire threat- 
ened to render popular. In 1785 appeared a second 
volume, containing Tirocinium, the Task, John Gilpin 
(which had been published separately two years before), 
the Sofa, &c. The translation of Homer's Iliad in blank 
verse appeared in 1791. Among Cowper's few intimate 
friends was the Eeverend John Newton. This excellent 
man was, unfortunately, a rigid Calvinist, and his gloomy 
predestinarianism took such a hold on the unsteady mind 
of Cowper, that, imagining himself doomed to everlasting 
perdition, he fell into a state of religious melancholy 
bordering on madness, which clouded his reason during 
the last ten years of his life. His exquisite poem of The 
Castaway was written within a year before his death, which 
occurred in April, 1800. 

In Scotland, where no truly original poet had arisen 
since Dunbar, the last forty years of the century witnessed 
the bright and brief career of the peasant poet, whose 
genius shed a dazzling glow over his country's literature. 
Many beautiful songs*, mostly of unknown authorship, 
circulated in Scotland before the time of Burns, some of 
which may be found in Percy's Reliques. With this foun- 

* For an interesting account of them, see an article by J. C. Shairp in 
Macmillaris Magazine for May, 1861. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUET. 187 

dation to work upon — with the education of a Scottish 
primary school, a knowledge of Pope and Shenstone, 
and a sound, clear intellect, — Burns made himself the 
greatest song-writer that our literature has ever known. 
Force pervaded his whole character ; he could do nothing 
by halves. At the age of eighteen, that passion, from 
which proceed so much alike of the glory and of the 
shame of man's existence, developed itself in his burning 
heart, and remained till death the chief motive power of 
his thoughts and acts. He fell in love ; and then his 
feelings, as he tells us, spontaneously burst forth in song. 
Two other strongly-marked tendencies in his character 
must be mentioned, to which some of his most famous 
productions may be attributed. The first was his ardent- 
spirit of nationality ; the second, his repugnance to, and 
revolt from, the narrow sectarianism of his age and 
country. Almost the first book he ever read was the life 
of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish patriot, whose hiding- 
places and ambushes, as pointed out by history or local 
tradition, he visited with a pilgrim's fervour. It was this 
spirit which produced such poems as — 

" Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," 

or the Address to the Scottish Members of Parliament. 
His repugnance to Presbyterianism redounds partly to the 
disgrace of the system which he satirized, and partly to 
his own. If he rebelled against the ceremonial and formal, 
he rebelled no less against the moral teaching of Presby- 
terianism. His protest against religious hypocrisy must 
be taken in connection with his own licentiousness. His 
father, an earnest adherent of that creed and system 
which the son broke away from and despised, though 
wrestling all his life against poverty and misfortune, 
endured his troubles with patience, and died in peace, 
because he had learned the secret of the victory over self. 
His wondrously gifted son never gained that victory, and the 



188 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

record of his last years presents one of the most sad, 
disastrous spectacles that it is possible to contemplate. 

Burns' first volume of poems was published in 1786, 
and a second edition appeared in the following year. 
After his marriage to Jean Armour, he settled on the farm 
of Ellisland, uniting the functions of an exciseman to 
those of a farmer. But the farm proved a bad specula- 
tion — 

" Spem mentita seges, bos est enectus arando," 

and, having received a more lucrative appointment in the 
excise, Burns gave up Ellisland and removed to Dumfries. 
Here the habit of intemperance, to indulgence in which 
the nature of his employment unhappily supplied more 
than ordinary temptations, gradually made him its slave ; 
disappointment and self-reproach preyed upon his heart ; 
want stared him in the face ; and the greatest of Scottish 
poets, having become a mere wreck of his former self, 
sank, in his thirty-seventh year, into an untimely grave. 



The Drama, 1745—1800 : — Home, Johnson, Goldsmith, 
Sheridan. 

The tragic stage resumed in this period, under the able 
management of Grarrick, a portion of its former dignity. 
But no orginal tragedies of importance were composed. 
Home's play of Douglas, known to all school-boys as the 
source of that familiar burst of eloquence, beginning — 

" My name is Norval, on the Grampian hills 
My father feeds his flocks," &c., &c. 

appeared in 1757. Johnson's tragedy of Irene, produced 
at Drury Lane by Grarrick in 1749, was coldly received, 
owing to the want of sustained tragic interest. When 
asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, the 



EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 189 

sturdy lexicographer replied, "Like the Monument." When 
we have mentioned Moore's Gamester (1755) and Mason's 
Caractacus (1759) our list of tragedies of any note is 
exhausted. 

The comedy of manners, as exemplified by the plays of 
Congreve and Farquhar, had gradually degenerated into 
the genteel or sentimental comedy, in which Colman the 
elder and Arthur Murphy were proficients. Goldsmith's 
Goocl-Naturecl Man (1768) was a clever attempt to bring 
back the theatrical public to the old way of thinking, 
which demanded " little more than nature and humour, 
in whatever walks of life they were most conspicuous." 
Delineation of character was therefore his principal aim. 
She Stoops to Conquer, a piece written on the same plan, 
appeared, and had a great run, in 1773. Foote, the actor, 
wrote several clever farces between 1752 and 1778. 

But the comic genius of Sheridan far outshone all his 
competitors. This too brilliant and ready-witted man 
was born at Dublin, and married the beautiful actress, 
Miss Linley. His life has been well written by Moore. 
His admirable prose comedies, the Rivals, the Duenna, 
the School for Scandal, and the Critic, were all 
written between 1775 and 1780. For pure, sparkling, 
never-failing wit, our dramatic literature contains nothing 
comparable to these pieces. Their versatile author, to 
whom Dryden's character of the second Duke of Buck- 
ingham — 

" A man so various, that he seem'd to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome," 

might not unfitly be applied, died, like Buckingham, an 
utter wreck, both in body and mind, in the year 1817. 

Learning, 1745— 1800 : — Por son, Lowth. 

The progress of classical and oriental learning owed 
little to England during this period. The one great name 



190 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

that occurs (Edward Gibbon) will be mentioned when we 
come to speak of the historians. Sloth and ease reigned 
at the Universities ; and those great foundations, which in 
the hands of monks and churchmen in former times had 
never wholly ceased to minister to learning and philosophy, 
were now the mere haunts of port-drinking fellows, and 
lazy, mercenary tutors.* Porson, the delicacy of whose 
Greek scholarship almost amounted to a sense, and. who 
admirably edited several of the plays of Euripides — 
Bishop Lowth, author of the Prcelectiones on Hebrew 
Poetry, and of a translation of Isaias, and Pococke, the 
Arabic scholar — are the only learned writers whose 
works are still of value. 



Prose Fiction, 1745—1800: — Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, 
Sterne, Goldsmith ; Miss Burney, Mrs. Hadcliffe. 

Favoured, in the manner before explained, by the 
continued stability of society, the taste for novels grew 
from year to year, and was gratified during this period by 
an abundant supply of fiction. Eichardson, Fielding, 
Smollett, and Sterne, worked on at the mine which 
Defoe had opened. Eichardson, who was brought up as a 
printer, produced his first novel, Pamela, in 1740. A 
natural and almost accidental train of circumstances led to 
his writing it. He had agreed to compose a collection of 
specimen letters — a polite letter-writer, in fact — for 
two booksellers ; and it occurred to him, while engaged in 
this task, that the work would be greatly enlivened if the 
letters were connected by a thread of narrative. The 
bookseller applauded the notion, and he accordingly 
worked up the true story of a young woman — the 
Pamela of the novel — which had come to his knowledge 
a few years before. Henry Fielding, sprung from a 

* See Gibbon's Memoirs. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 191 

younger branch of the noble house of Denbigh, wrote his 
first novel — Joseph Andrews — in 1742, to turn Pamela 
into ridicule. Kichardson's masterpieces, Clarissa Harlowe 
and Sir Charles Grrandison, appeared successively in 1748 
and 1753; Fielding's Tom Jones and Amelia in 1749 
and 1751. Smollett, a Scotchman, wrote, between 1748 
and 1771, a number of coarse clever novels upon the same 
general plan as those of his English contemporaries ; 
that is, on the plan of " holding the mirror up to Nature," 
and showing to the age its own likeness without flattery or 
disguise. The best are Roderick Random and Humphrey 
Clinker. But Eichardson wrote always with a moral pur- 
pose, which the other two had not, though that does not 
hinder much that he wrote from being of an objectionable 
tendency. 

In Sterne, humour is carried to its farthest point. His 
novel of Tristram Shandy is like no other novel ever 
written : it has no interest of plot or of incident ; its merit 
and value lie partly in the humour with which the 
characters are drawn and contrasted, partly in that other 
kind of humour which displays itself in unexpected trans- 
itions, and curious trains of thought. The first two 
volumes of Tristram Shandy appeared in 1759. The cha- 
racter and life of Sterne have been admirably portrayed 
by Thackeray, in his Lectures on the English Humorists. 
Johnson's tale of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, ap- 
peared in 1759. In Lord Brougham's Life of Voltaire, 
Johnson is reported to have said that, had he seen 
z^yoltaire's Candide, which appeared shortly before, he 
should not have written Rasselas, because both works 
travel nearly over the same ground. Nothing, however, 
can be more different than the tone and spirit of the tales. 
Each writer rejects the optimism of Leibnitz, and pictures 
a world full of evil and misery; but the Frenchman 
founds on this common basis his sneers at religion and 
at the doctrine of an overruling Providence, while the 



192 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Englishman represents the darkest corners of the present 
life as irradiated by a compensating faith in immortality, 
which alone can explain their existence. 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, the book which, by its 
picturesque presentation of the manners and feelings of 
simple people, first led Groethe to turn with interest to 
the study of English literature, was published in 1766. 
The Man of Feeling, by Henry Mackenzie, appeared in 
1771. Its author, who wrote it while under the potent 
spell of Sterne's humour, and the attraction of Johnson's 
style, lived far on into the nineteenth century, and 
learned to feel and confess the superior power of the 
author of Waverley. The Man of the World and Julia 
de Roubigne are later works, by the same hand. Frances 
Burney created a sensation by her novel of Evelina, 
published in 1778, "the best work of fiction that had 
appeared since the death of Smollett." * It was followed 
by Cecilia (1782),, and — at a long interval, both of time 
and merit — by Camilla, in 1796. 

Between the works just mentioned and the writings of 
Grodwin, there is a gulf interposed, such as marks the 
transition from one epoch of world-history to another. 
Instead of the moralizing, the sketches of manners, and 
delineations of character, on which the novelists of this age 
had till then employed their powers, we meet with im- 
passioned or argumentative attacks upon society itelf, as if 
it were so fatally disordered as to require reconstruction 
from top to bottom. The design of Caleb Williams, 
published in 1794, is to represent English society as so 
iniquitously constituted as to enable a man of wealth and 
position to trample with impunity upon the rights of his 
inferiors, and, though himself a criminal of the darkest 
dye, to brave the accusations of his poor and unfriended 
opponent, and succeed in fixing upon him, though 
innocent, the brand of guilt. Besides Caleb Williams 

* Macaulay's Essays. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 193 

Godwin wrote the strange romance of St. Leon, the hero of 
which has found the elixir vitse, and describes the descent 
of his undecaying life from century to century. About 
the close of the period, Mrs. KadclifTe wrote the Myste- 
ries of Udolpho, and the Romance of the Forest — two 
thrilling romances of the Kotzebue school, in which 
stirring and terrible events succeed each other so rapidly, 
that the reader is, or ought to be, kept in a whirl of 
horror and excitement from the. beginning to the end. 
Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto was meant as a satire 
upon novels of this class ; though, as he relates with great 
enjoyment, numberless simple-minded novel -readers took 
it for a serious production of the romantic school. 

Oratory, 1745 — 1800 : — Chatham, Burke, Sheridan, &c. 

This is the great age of English eloquence. Perhaps no 
country in the world ever possessed at one time such a 
group of orators as that whose voices were heard in 
Parliament and in Westminster Hall during these fifty 
years. Chatham, Burke, Fox, Erskine, Pitt, Sheridan, and 
Grattan ! It seemed' as if the country could not bring to 
maturity two kinds of imaginative genius at once ; — the 
age of the great poets — of Milton, Dryden, and Pope — 
passes away before the age of the great orators begins. 
Our limits will only permit us to advert to a few cele- 
brated orations. Everyone has heard of the last speech 
of the great Lord Chatham, in April 1778, "the expiring 
tones of that mighty voice when he protested against the 
dismemberment of this ancient monarchy, and prayed 
that if England must fall, she might fall with honour/' * 
The eloquence of Burke — 

" Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
And thought of convincing when they thought of dining," 

* Arnold's Roman History, vol. i. 




194 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

though it often flew over the heads of those to whom it 
was addressed, was to be the admiration and delight of 
unborn generations. The speech on the conciliation of 
America (1775), that addressed to the electors of Bristol 
(1780), that on the Nabob of Arcot's debts (1785), and 
those delivered on the impeachment of Warren Hastings 
(1788), may be considered his greatest efforts. Upon a 
subject connected with, and leading to this impeachment — 
the conduct of Warren Hastings to the Begums of Oude — 
Sheridan delivered, in 1787, a speech which was unfortu- 
nately not reported, but which appears to have made a 
more profound and permanent impression upon the 
hearers than any speech recorded in the annals of Parlia- 
ment. "Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the 
speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some 
faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the 
literary or the parliamentary performances of Sheridan, 
the finest that had been delivered within the memory of 
man." * Grrattan during many years was the foremost 
among a number of distinguished orators who sat in the 
Irish parliament; and his fiery eloquence, exerted at a 
period when England lay weakened and humiliated by 
her failure in America, extorted for that body, in 1782, the 
concession of legislative independence. Pitt's speech on 
the India Bill in 1784, explaining and defending his 
proposal of the system of double government, which has 
been lately (1858) superseded, as well as his speeches on 
the Slave Trade and the Catholic Relief Bill, though not 
exactly eloquent, should be read as embodying the views 
of a great practical statesman upon subjects of deep and 
permanent interest. Erskine was a cadet of a noble but 
needy family in Scotland. He crossed the Border early 
in life, raised himself by his remarkable powers as an 
advocate to the position of Lord Chancellor, and died on 

* Maeaulay's Essays ; article. Warren Hastings. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 195 

his way back to his native country, in his seventy-third 
year. 

Pamphlets, Miscellanies, 1745 — 1800 : — Junius, Burke, 
Johnson. 

The famous Letters of Junius, addressed to the Public 
Advertiser, extend over the period from the 21st January, 
1769, to the 21st January, 1772. Under his impene- 
trable mask, the writer first attacks the different members 
of the ministry of the Duke of Grafton, to whom, as 
premier, eleven of the letters are addressed, in which the 
life and character, both public and private, of the minister 
are exposed with keen and merciless satire. The thirty- 
fifth letter is addressed to the King, and concludes with 
the well-known daring words, " The prince, who imitates 
their [the Stuarts'] conduct, should be warned by their 
example ; and while he plumes himself upon the security 
of his title to the crown, should remember that, as it was 
acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another.*' 
The mystery about the authorship, which volumes have 
been written to elucidate, has without doubt contributed 
to the fame of the Letters. The opinions, however, of the 
best judges have been of late years converging to a settled 
belief, that Sir Philip Francis, a leading opposition 
member in the House of Commons, was Junius ; and that 
no other person could have been. 

Johnson is the author of four pamphlets, all on the 
Tory side in politics. He was often taunted with writing 
in favour of the reigning dynasty, by which he had been 
pensioned, while his real sympathies lay with the house of 
Stuart. But his prejudices, rather than his reason, were 
Jacobite. He said, that if holding up his little finger 
would have given the victory at Culloden to Prince 
Charles Edward, he was not sure that he would have held 
it up. And he jokingly told Boswell, that "the pleasures 

o 2 



196 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of cursing the house of Hanover, and drinking King- 
James's health, were amply overbalanced by three 
hundred pounds a year." The False Alarm appeared in 
17,70; — the Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting 
the Falkland Islands (in which there is a well-known 
invective against Junius) in the following year. The 
Patriot came out in 1774, and Taxation no Tyranny in 
1775. This last pamphlet was written at the desire of the 
incapable and obstinate ministry of Lord North, as a 
reply to the Resolutions and Address of the American 
Congress. This tirade against brave men for defending 
their liberties in the style of their English forefathers, 
shows how mischievously a great mind may be blinded by 
the indulgence of unexamined prejudices. 

The longer political writings of Burke we shall consider 
as contributions to political science, and treat under the 
head of philosophy. The remaining treatises may be 
divided into four classes, — as relating, 1. to general 
home politics, 2. to colonial affairs, 3. to French and 
foreign affairs, 4. to the position and claims of the Irish 
Catholics. Among the tracts of the first class, the Sketch 
of the Negro Code (1792), an attempt to mediate between 
the planters and the abolitionists, by proposing to place 
the slave trade under stringent regulations, and con- 
currently to raise the condition of the negroes in the West 
Indies by a series of humane measures borrowed mostly 
from the Spanish code, deserves special mention for its 
far-sighted wisdom. His tracts on American affairs were, 
like his speeches, on the side of conciliation and conces- 
sion. Upon the subject of the French revolution he felt 
so keenly, that his dislike of the policy deepened into 
estrangement from the persons of its English sympathizers. 
He broke with his old friend Fox, and refused to see him 
even when lying on the bed of mortal sickness. The last 
of the four letters On a Regicide Peace is dated in 1797, 
the year of his death, and the MS. was found unfinished, 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 197 

as if the composition had been arrested only by physical 
inability to proceed. Against the penal laws then weigh- 
ing upon the Irish Catholics, he spoke and wrote with 
a generous pertinacity. The memory of his Catholic 
mother had perhaps as much to do with this as the native 
enlightenment and capacity of his mind. His writings on 
this question, in its various aspects, extend over more 
than thirty years of his life, from 1766 to 1797. His last 
Letter on the Affairs of Ireland was written but a few 
months before his death. He avows that he has not 
" power enough of mind or body to bring out his senti- 
ments with their natural force," but adds — "I do not 
wish to have it concealed that I am of the same opinion 
to my last breath which I entertained when my faculties 
were at the best." 

The commencement of the Rambler in March 1750, 
marked an attempt on the part of Johnson to revive the 
periodical miscellany, which had sunk into disrepute 
since the death of Addison. Of all the papers in the 
Rambler, from the commencement to the concluding 
number, dated 2nd March 1752, only three were not from 
the pen of Johnson. Although many single papers were 
admirable, the miscellany was pervaded by a certain 
cumbrousness and monotony, which prevented it from 
obtaining a popularity comparable to that of the Spectator. 
The Adventurer was commenced by Dr. Hawkesworth in 
1753. In that and the following year Johnson furnished 
a few articles for it, signed with the letter T. The Idler, 
which was even less successful than the Rambler, was 
carried on during two years, from April 1758 to April 
1760. All but twelve of the hundred and three articles 
were written by Johnson. For many years afterwards 
this style of writing remained unattempted. 



O 3 



198 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Historians, 1745—1800: — Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, 
Warton. Biographers: — Boswell, &c. 

The best, or at any rate the best known, historical 
compositions in our literature, date from this period. The 
Scottish philosopher, David Hume, availing himself of the 
materials which had been collected by Carte, the author 
of the Life of Ormond, published between the years 1754 
and 1762 his History of England. The reigns of the 
Stuarts were the first portion published ; in the treatment 
of which his anti-Puritanic tone much offended the Whig 
party, and for some years interfered with the circulation of 
the book. Johnson was probably right when he said that 
" Hume would never have written a history had not Vol- 
taire written it before him." For the Steele de Louis 
XIV. appeared before 1753, and the influence of the Essai 
sur les Mceurs is clearly traceable in Hume's later vol- 
umes. William Eobertson — a Scottish Presbyterian 
minister, who rose to be Principal of the University of 
Edinburgh — wrote his History of Scotland during the 
Reigns of Queen Mary and King James VI. in 1759. In 
1769 appeared his History of the Emperor Charles V., 
and in 1777 his History of America. As his first work 
had procured for Dr. Eobertson a brilliant reputation in his 
own country, so his histories of Charles V. and of America 
extended his fame to foreign lands. The former was 
translated by M. Suard in France ; the latter, after receiv- 
ing the warm approbation of the Eoyal Academy of 
History at Madrid, was about to be translated into Spanish, 
when the government, not wishing their American admin- 
istration to be brought under discussion, interfered with a 
prohibition. 

Edward Gibbon, who was descended from an ancient 
family in Kent, was born in 1737. While at Oxford, he 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 199 

became a Catholic from reading the works of Parsons and 
Bossuet. His father immediately sent him to Lausanne, 
to be under the care of a Calvinist minister, whose pru- 
dent management, seconded as it was by the absence of 
all opposing influences, in a few months effected his re-con- 
version to Protestantism. For the rest of his life he was a 
" philosopher," as the eighteenth century understood the 
term ; in other words, a disbeliever in revealed religion. 
Concerning the origin of his celebrated work, he says : — 
"It was at Eome, on the 15th October 1764, as I sat 
musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare- 
footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, 
that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city 
first started to my mind. But my original plan was cir- 
cumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the 
empire ; and . . . some years elapsed . . . before 
I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious 
work." * The several volumes of the History appeared 
between 1776 and 1787. The work was translated into 
several languages, and Gibbon obtained by European con- 
sent a place among the historians of the first rank. 

Among the minor historians of the period, the chief 
were Groldsmith, the author of short popular histories of 
Greece, Eome, and England ; Eussell, whose History of 
Modem Europe appeared between 1779 and 1784, and 
has been continued by Coote and others down to our own 
times ; and Mitford, in whose History of Greece, the first 
volume of which was published in 1784, the Tory sentiments 
of the author find a vent in the continual disparagement 
of the Athenian democracy. Thomas Warton's History of 
English Poetry, a work of great learning, and to this day 
of unimpaired authority, was published between 1774 and 
1781. It comes down to the age of Elizabeth. If all her 
Professors of Poetry had so well repaid her patronage, the 

* Memoirs, p 19S. 
O 4 



200 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

literary reputation of Oxford would have been more con- 
siderable than it is. 

Among works subsidiary to history, the chief were — 
in Biography, Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1781), a dull 
Life of Pope by Kuffhead, Hume's Autobiography, edited 
by Adam Smith (1777), and Boswell's Life of Johnson 
(1791). The records of seafaring enterprise were en- 
riched by the Voyages of the great Captain Cook (1773 — 
1784) of Byron, and Vancouver. 

" Theology, 1700—1800. 

The English theological literature of this century in- 
cludes some remarkable works. A series of open or covert 
attacks upon Christianity, proceeding from the school of 
writers known as the English Deists, began to appear 
about the beginning of the century. Toland led the way 
with his Christianity not Mysterious, in 1702; and the 
series was closed by Bolingbroke's posthumous works, 
published in 1752, by which time the temper of the public 
mind was so much altered that Bolingbroke's scoffs at 
religion hardly aroused any other feelings but those of 
impatience and indignation. Collins, Tindal, Chubb, 
Wollaston, and others, took part in the anti-Christian 
enterprise. In order to reply to them, the Protestant 
divines were compelled to take different ground from that 
which their predecessors had chosen in the two previous 
centuries. Hooker, Andrewes, Laud, Taylor, and the rest 
of the High Church school, had based the obligation of 
religious belief to a large extent upon Church authority. 
But their opponents had replied, that if that principle 
were admitted, it was impossible to justify the separation 
from Eome. The Puritans of the old school had set up 
the Scriptures, as constituting by themselves an infallible 
religious oracle. But the notorious, important, and inter- 
minable differences of interpretation which divided the 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 201 

Biblical party, had discredited this method of appeal. 
The Quakers and other ultra-Puritans, discarding both 
Church authority and the letter of Scripture, had imagined 
that they had found, in a certain inward spiritual illumi- 
nation residing in the souls of believers, the unerring- 
religious guide which all men desired. But the mon- 
strous profaneness and extravagance to which this doctrine 
of the inward light had often conducted its adherents, had 
brought this expedient also into discredit. The only 
course left for the divines was to found the duty of ac- 
cepting Christianity upon the dictates of common sense 
and reason. The Deists urged that the Christian doctrines 
were irrational; the divines met them on their own 
ground, and contended that, on the contrary, revelation was 
in itself so antecedently probable, and was supported by 
so many solid proofs, that it was but the part of prudence 
and good sense to accept it. The reasonableness of 
Christianity — the evidences for Christianity — the proofs 
of revelation — such was the tenor of all their replies. 
It has well been called a rationalizing age — Seculum 
Eationalisticum. Among the crowd of publications issued 
by the Christian apologists, there are three or four which 
have obtained a permanent place in general literature. 
The first is Bentley's Phileleutherus Lipsiensis (1713), 
written in answer to Collins' Discourse 'on Free Thinking. 
This is a short and masterly tract, in which the great 
Aristarch proved, with reference to some cavilling objec- 
tions which Collins had derived from the variety of 
readings in the manuscripts, that the text of the New 
Testament was on the whole in a better and sounder state 
than that of any of the Greek classical authors. The 
second is Bishop Berkeley's Alciphron, published in 1732. 
The third is Butler's celebrated Analogy of Religion, both 
Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course 
of Nature, published in 1736. As against the Deists, the 
controversy was now decided. It was abundantly proved 



202 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

that the fact of a revelation was, if not demonstrable, yet 
so exceedingly probable that no prudent mind could 
reject it, and that the Christian ethics were not inconsist- 
ent with, but a continuation and expansion of, natural 
morality. Deism accordingly fell into disrepute in Eng- 
land about the middle of the century. But in France 
the works of some of the English Deists became known 
through the translations of Diderot and the Encyclopae- 
dists, and doubtless co-operated with those of Voltaire in 
causing the outburst of irreligion which followed the 
Kevolution of 1789. 

One more of these apologetic works must be mentioned, 
the Divine Legation of Hoses, by Bishop Warburton 
(1743). This writer, known for his arrogant temper, to 
whom Mallet addressed a pamphlet inscribed " To the 
most Impudent Man alive," was possessed of a rare com- 
bination of intellectual gifts. His friendship with Pope, 
whose Essay on Man he defended against the censures of 
Crousaz, first brought him into notice. The favour of 
Queen Caroline, whose discerning eye real merit or genius 
seldom escaped, raised him to the episcopal bench. The 
full title of the controversial work above mentioned is, 
" The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated on the Prin- 
ciples of a Eeligious Deist from the Omission of the Doctrine 
of a Future State of Eeward and Punishment in the 
Jewish Dispensation." The introduction is in the form of 
a " Dedication to the Free-Thinkers " in which, while pro- 
testing against the buffoonery, scurrility, and other unfair 
arts which the anti- Christian writers employed in contro- 
versy, Warburton carefully guards himself from the sup- 
position of being hostile to the freedom of the press. 
rt No generous and sincere advocate of religion," he says, 
" would desire an adversary whom the laws had before 
disarmed." * 

* The materials of the above sketch are chiefly taken from an able 
paper by Mr. Pattison in the volume of Essays and Reviews. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 203 

The rise of Methodism dates from about 1730. It was 
a reaction against the coldness and dryness of the current 
Protestant theology, which has been described as " polished 
as marble, but also as lifeless and cold." With its multi- 
plied " proofs," and " evidences," and appeals to reason, it 
had failed to make Christianity better known or more 
loved by its generation; its authors are constantly be- 
wailing the inefficacy of their own arguments, and the 
increasing corruption of the age. Methodism appealed to 
the heart, thereby to awaken the conscience and influence 
the will ; and this is the secret of its astonishing success. 
It originated in the prayer-meetings of a few devoutly- 
disposed young men at Oxford, whom Wesley joined, and 
among whom he at once became the leading spirit. He 
was himself much influenced by Count Zinzendorf, the 
founder of Moravianism ; but his large and sagacious mind 
refused to entangle itself in mysticism; and, after a 
curious debate, they parted, and each went his own way. 
After fruitlessly endeavouring for many years to accommo- 
date the new movement to the forms of the Establishment, 
Wesley organised an independent system of ministerial 
work and government for the sect which he had called 
into existence. After the middle of the century multi- 
tudes of human beings commenced to crowd around the 
newly-opened manufacturing and mining centres in the 
northern counties. Neither they nor their employers took 
much thought about their religious concerns. Hampered 
by their legal status, and traditionally suspicious of any- 
thing approaching to enthusiasm, the clergy of the Esta- 
blished church neglected this new demand on their charity ; 
— and miners and factory hands would have grown up as 
Pagans in a Christian land, had not the Wesleyan irre- 
gulars flung themselves into the breach, and endeavoured 
to bring the Grospel, according to their understanding of 
it, within the reach of these untended flocks, At the 
present time, Methodism is split up into at least seven 



204 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

different sects or " connexions," * numbering in all more 
than seventeen hundred thousand souls. A movement so 
vast has of course a literature to represent it ; but from 
its sectarian position the literature of Methodism is, to use 
an American phrase, sectional merely; it possesses no 
permanent or general interest. Wesley himself, and 
perhaps Fletcher of Madeley, are the only exceptions. 

Cony ers Middleton wrote in 1729 his Letter from Rome, 
in which he attempted to derive all the ceremonies of the 
Catholic ritual from the Pagan religion, which it had 
supplanted. An able reply, The Catholic Christian In- 
structed, was written by Challoner (1737), to the effect 
that Middleton's averments were in part untrue, in part 
true, but not to the purpose of his argument, since an 
external resemblance between a Pagan and a Christian 
rite was of no importance, provided the inward meaning 
of the two were totally different. 

Philosophy, 1700— 1800:— Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Butler, 
Paley. 

Nothing more than a meagre outline of the history of 
philosophy in this period can here be attempted. Those 
who devoted themselves to philosophical studies were 
numerous ; this, in fact, up to past the middle of the cen- 
tury, was the fashionable and favourite pursuit with the 
educated classes. The most famous work of the greatest 
poet of the age, Pope's Essay on Man, is a metaphysico- 
moral treatise in heroic verse. The philosophers may be 
classed under various heads : we have the Sensational 
school, founded by Locke, of whom we have already 

* The Original Connexion, the New Connexion, the Primitive Methodists, 
the Bible Methodists, the "Wesleyan Methodist Association, the "Wesleyan 
Methodist Reformers, and the Calvinistic Methodists (who are subdivided 
into the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion), and the Welsh Calvinistic 
Methodists. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 205 

spoken; the Idealists, represented by Bishop Berkeley: 
the Sceptical school, founded by Hume; the Common- 
sense or Scotch school, comprising the names of Eeid, 
Brown, and Dugald Stewart; and the Moralists, repre- 
sented by Butler, Smith, and Paley. 

There are few philosophers whose personal character it 
is more agreeable to contemplate than Greorge Berkeley, 
the Protestant Bishop of Cloyne. He was born in 1684 
at Kilevin, in the county of Kilkenny, and educated at 
Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a fellowship in 
1707. About four years later he went over to London, 
where he was received with open arms. There seems to 
have been something so winning about his personal ad- 
dress, that criticism, when it questioned his positions, 
forgot its usual bitterness ; and extraordinary natural gifts 
seem for once to have aroused no envy in the beholder. 
Pope, whose satire was so unsparing, ascribes — 

" To Berkeley every virtue under heaven : " 

and Atterbury, after an interview with him, said, " So 
much understanding, so much knowledge, so much in- 
nocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the 
portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman/' 

Of Berkeley's share in the controversy with the Deists, 
we have already spoken. His Principles of Human 
Knoivledge, published in 1710, contains the idealist sys- 
tem for which his name is chiefly remembered. In 
devising this, his aim was still practical : he hoped to cut the 
ground away from beneath the rationalising assailants of 
Christianity by proving that the existence of the material 
universe, the supposed invariable laws of which were set 
up by the sceptics as inconsistent with revelation, was in 
itself problematical, since all that we can know directly 
respecting it is the ideas which we form of it, which ideas 
may, after all, be delusive. His other philosophical works 

* Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, article Berkeley. 



206 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

are, Hylas and Philonous, Siris, or Reflections on Tar- 
water, and a Theory of Vision. Sir James Mackintosh 
was of opinion that Berkeley's works were beyond dispute 
the finest models of philosophical style since Cicero. 

David Hume, born at Edinburgh in 1711, was educated 
for the bar. He was never married. He enjoyed throuo-h 
life perfect health, and was gifted with unflagging spirits, 
and a cheerful, amiable disposition. His passions were 
not naturally strong, and his sound judgment and good 
sense enabled him to keep them under control. He died 
in 1776. 

Hume's chief philosophical works are contained in two 
volumes of Essays and Treatises. The first volume con- 
sists of Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, in two parts, 
originally published in 1742 and 1752 respectively. The 
second volume contains the Inquiry concerning Human 
Understanding and other treatises, the whole of which 
are a revised condensation of the Treatise on Human 
Nature, published in 1738, and spoken of in the adver- 
tisement to the Essays and Treatises as a "juvenile work," 
for which the author declined to be responsible in his 
riper years. In these treatises Hume propounds his 
theory of universal scepticism. Berkeley had denied 
matter, or the mysterious somewhat inferred by philo- 
sophers to exist beneath the sensible properties of objects ; 
and Hume went yet further, and denied mind, the 
substance in which successive sensations and reflections 
are supposed to inhere. That we do perceive, and do 
reflect, is, he admitted, certain ; but what that is which 
perceives and reflects, whether it has any independent 
being of itself, apart from the series of impressions of 
which it is the subject, is a point altogether obscure, and 
on which, he maintained, our faculties have no means of 
determining. Philosophy was thus placed in a dilemma, 
and became impossible.* 

* See Lewes' s History of Philosophy. 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 207 

The Scotch or common-sense school has received ample 
justice at the hands of Cousin in his Cours de Philosophic 
Moclerne. It commenced with Keid's Inquiry into the 
Human Mind upon the principles of Common Sense, 
published in 1764. As a reaction against the idealism of 
Berkeley and the scepticism of Hume, the rise of the 
common-sense school was natural enough. It said in 
effect — " We have a rough general notion of the existence 
of matter outside and independently of ourselves, of which 
no subtlety can deprive us ; and the instinctive impulse 
which we feel to put faith in the results of our mental 
operations is an irrefragable proof, and the best that can 
be given, of the reasonableness of that faith." 

Among the moralists of the period Butler holds the 
highest place. The fact of the existence in the mind of 
disinterested affections and dispositions, pointing to the 
good of others, which Hobbes had denied, Butler, in those 
admirable Sermons preached in the Eolls Chapel, has 
incontrovertibly established. " In these sermons he has 
taught truths more capable of being exactly distinguished 
from the doctrines of his predecessors, more satisfactorily 
established by him, more comprehensively applied to 
particulars, more rationally connected with each other, 
and therefore more worthy of the name of discovery, than 
any with which we are acquainted ; if we ought not, with 
some hesitation, to except the first steps of the Grecian 
philosophers towards a ' Theory of Morals.' " * Hutcheson, 
an Irishman, author of an Inquiry into Beauty and 
Virtue and other works, followed in the same track of 
thought. Hume's Inquiry concerning the Principles of 
Morals was considered by himself to be the best of the 
writings ; it is, at any rate, the least paradoxical. Adam 
Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 
1759, follows Hume in holding the principle of sympathy 

* -Mackintosh's Dissertation, p. 191. 



208 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

to be the chief source of our moral feelings and judgments. 
Hartley, in his remarkable book, Observations on Man 
(1749), teaches that the development of the moral faculty 
within us is mainly effected through the principle of the 
association of ideas, a term first applied in this sense by 
Locke. Tucker's Light of Nature is chiefly metaphysical ; 
so far as he touches on morals, he shows a disposition to 
return to the selfish theory, in opposition to the view of 
disinterested moral feelings introduced by Butler. Lastly, 
William Paley, following Tucker, elaborated in his Moral 
and Political Philosophy, published in 1785, his well- 
known system of Utilitarianism : " Virtue," he said, " is 
the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of 
(xod, and for the sake of everlasting happiness." Mack- 
intosh remarks that it follows, as a necessary consequence 
from this proposition, that " every act which flows from 
generosity or benevolence is a vice." 



Political Science. 

Hume's political writings, on the Origin of Govern- 
ment, the Protestant Succession, the Idea of a Perfect 
Commonwealth, &c. &c, form a large portion of the two 
volumes of Essays and Treatises already mentioned. 
Hume regards political science as a speculative philo- 
sopher ; in Burke, the knowledge and the tendencies of 
the philosopher, the jurist, the statesman, and the patriot, 
appear all united. The fundamental idea of his political 
philosophy was, that civil liberty was rather prescriptive 
than theoretic ; that Order implied Progress, and Progress 
presupposed Order ; that in a political society the rights of 
its members were not absolute and unconditional, but 
strictly relative to, and to be sought in conformity with, 
the existing constitution of that society. These views are 
put forth in the most masterly and eloquent manner in his 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 209 

Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 
1790. Among those who supported in this country the 
political theories of the French Jacobins and Kousseau, 
the most eminent were William Grodwin and Thomas 
Paine. The former published his Inquiry concerning 
Political Justice in 1793; the latter was living in 
America during the war of independence, and, by the 
publication of his periodical tracts entitled Common Sense, 
contributed not a little to chase away the despondency 
which was beginning at one time to prevail among the 
colonists, and to define their position and political aims. 
The Rights of Man appeared in 1792, and the Age of 
Reason, a work conceived in the extremest French free- 
thinking spirit, in 1794. 



Political Economy: — Adam Smith : Criticism; Burke, 
Reynolds. 

The science of Political Economy was, if not invented, 
at least enlarged, simplified, and systematised by Adam 
Smith, in his celebrated Inquiry into the Nature and 
Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The late rise 
of this science may be ascribed to several causes ; — to the 
contempt with which the ancient Greek philosophers re- 
garded the whole business of money-getting ; to the aver- 
sion entertained by the philosophers of later schools for 
luxury, as the great depraver of morals, whence they 
would be little disposed to analyse the sources of that 
wealth, the accumulation of which made luxury possible ; 
lastly, to the circumstance, that during the middle ages 
the clergy were the sole educators of society, and were 
not likely to undertake the study of phenomena which 
lay quite out of their track of thought and action. Only 
when the laity came to be generally educated, and began 
to reflect intelligently upon the principles and laws 



210 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

involved in the every-day operations of the temporal life, 
could a science of wealth become possible. 

Certain peculiarities about the East Indian trade of the 
seventeenth century, which consisted chiefly in the ex- 
change of silks and other Indian manufactures for bullion, 
gave occasion to a number of pamphlets, in which the 
true principles of commerce were gradually developed. 
But what was called the " mercantile system " was long 
the favourite doctrine both with statesmen and economists, 
and, indeed, is even yet not quite exploded. By this was 
meant a system of cunning devices, having for their object, 
by repressing trade in one direction, and encouraging it 
in another, to leave the community at the end of each 
year more plentifully supplied with the precious metals 
(in which alone wealth was then supposed to consist) than 
at the end of the preceding. The tradition of over-govern- 
ment which had come down from the Eoman empire, 
joined to the narrow corporate spirit which had arisen 
among the great trading cities of the middle ages, led 
naturally to such views of national economy. Everyone 
knows what efforts it has cost in our own days to establish 
the simple principle of commercial freedom — the right to 
"buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market." 
That this principle has at last prevailed, and that money, 
in so far as it is not itself a mere commodity, is now re- 
garded, not as wealth, but as the variable representative 
of wealth, is mainly due to the great work of Adam 
Smith. 

Burke published in 1756 his celebrated philosophical 
Essay on the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and 
Beautiful. Sir Joshua Eeynolds' excellent Discourses on 
Painting, or rather the first part of them, appeared in 
1779. Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, compiled 
from the unwieldy collections of Virtue on the lives and 
works of British artists, were published between the years 
1761 and 1771. 



MODERN TIMES. 211 



CHAPTEE VI. 

MODERN TIMES 

1800 1850. 

As no summary which our limits would permit us to give 
of the political events between 1800 and 1850 could add 
materially to the student's knowledge respecting a period 
so recent, we shall omit here the historical sketch which 
we prefixed to each of the two preceding chapters. 

At once, from the opening of the nineteenth century, we 
meet with originality and with energetic convictions ; the 
deepest problems are sounded with the utmost freedom ; 
decorum gives place to earnestness; and principles are 
mutually confronted instead of forms. We speak of Eng- 
land only; the change to which we refer set in at an 
earlier period in France and Grermany. In the main, the 
chief pervading movement of society may be described as 
one of reaction against the ideas of the eighteenth century. 
Those ideas were, in brief, Rationalism and Formalism, both 
in literature and in politics. Pope, for instance, was a 
rationalist, and also a formalist, in both respects. In his 
views of society, he took the excellence of no institution 
for granted — he would not admit that antiquity in itself 
constituted a claim to reverence ; on the contrary, his turn 
of mind disposed him to try all things, old and new, by 
the test of their rationality, and to ridicule the multiplicity 
of forms and usages — some marking ideas originally 
irrational, others whose meaning, once clear and true, had 
been lost or obscured through the change of circumstances, 

P 2 



212 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

which encumbered the public life of his time. Yet he 
was, at the same time, a political formalist in this sense, 
that he desired no sweeping changes, and was quite con- 
tent that the social system should work on as it was. It 
suited him, and that was enough for his somewhat selfish 
philosophy. Again, in Literature he was a rationalist, and 
also a formalist ; but here in a good sense. For in literary 
as in all other art, the form is of prime importance ; and 
his destructive logic, while it crushed bad forms, bound 
him to develop his powers in strict conformity to good 
ones. Now the reaction against these ideas was two-fold. 
The conservative reaction, while it pleaded the claims of 
prescription, denounced the aberrations of reason, and 
endeavoured to vindicate or resuscitate the ideas lying at 
the base of existing political society, which the rationalism 
of the eighteenth century had sapped, rebelled at the same 
time against the arbitrary rules with which — not Pope 
himself, but his followers — had fettered literature. The 
liberal, or revolutionary reaction, while, accepting the 
destructive rationalism of the eighteenth century, it scouted 
its political formalism as weak and inconsistent, joined 
the conservative school in rebelling against the reign 
of the arbitrary and the formal in literature. This, 
then, is the point of contact between Scott and the con- 
servative school on the one hand, and Coleridge, Godwin, 
Byron, Shelley, and the rest of the revolutionary school 
on the other. They were all agreed that literature, and 
especially poetry, was become a cold, lifeless affair, 
conforming to all the rules and proprieties, but divorced 
from living nature, and the warm spontaneity of the heart. 
They imagined that the extravagant and exclusive ad- 
miration of the classical models had occasioned this mis- 
chief; and fixing their eyes on the rude yet grand 
beginnings of modern society, which the spectacle of the 
feudal ages presented to them, they thought that by 
imbuing themselves with the spirit of romance and chivalry 



MODERN TIMES. 213 

— by coming into moral contact with the robust faith and 
energetic passions of a race not yet sophisticated by civil- 
ization — they would wake up within themselves the great 
original forces of the human spirit — forces which, once 
set in motion, would develop congenial literary forms, 
produced, not by the labor limce, but by a true inspira- 
tion. 

Especially in poetry was this the case. To the artificial, 
mechanical, didactic school, which Pope's successors had 
made intolerable, was now opposed a counter theory of the 
poetic function, which we may call the theory of the 
Spontaneous. As light flows from the stars, or perfume 
from flowers — as the nightingale cannot help singing, nor 
the bee refrain from making honey ; — so, according to 
this theory, poetry is the spontaneous emanation of a 
musical and beautiful soul. "The poet is born, and is 
not made ; " and so is it with his poetry. To pretend to 
construct a beautiful poem, is as if one were to try to con- 
struct a tree. Something dead and wooden will be the 
result in either case. In a poet, effort is tantamount to 
condemnation; for it implies the absence of inspiration. 
For the same reason, to be consciously didactic is incom- 
patible with the true poetic gift. For whatever of great 
value comes from a poet, is not that which he wills to say, 
but that which he cannot help saying, — that which some 
higher power — call it Nature or what you will — dictates 
through his lips, as through an oracle. 

This theory, which certainly had many attractions and 
contained much truth, led to various important results. 
It drove away from Helicon many versifiers who had no 
business there, by depriving them of an audience. The 
Beatties, Akensides, Youngs, and Darwins, who had in- 
flicted their dulness on the last century, under the im- 
pression that it was poetry — a delusion shared by their 
readers, — had to " pale their ineffectual fire " and decamp, 
when their soporific productions were confronted with the 

P 3 



214 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

startling and direct utterances of the disciples of the Spon- 
taneous. On the other hand, the theory produced new 
mischiefs and generated new mistakes. It did not silence 
inferior poets ; but they were of a different class from what 
they had been before. It was not now the moralist or the 
dabbler in philosophy, who, imagining himself to have 
important information to convey to mankind, and aiming 
at delighting while he instructed, constructed his epic, or 
ode, or metrical essay, as the medium of communication. 
It was rather the man gifted with a fatal facility of rhyme 
— with a mind teeming with trivial thoughts, and corre- 
sponding words — who was misled by the new theory into 
confounding the rapidity of his conceptions with the 
spontaneity of genius, and into thinking revision or cur- 
tailment of them a kind of treason to the divine afflatus. 
Such writers generally produced two or three pretty pieces, 
written at their brightest moments, amidst a miscellaneous 
heap of " fugitive poems " — rightly so called — which were 
good for little or nothing. Upon real genius the theory 
acted both for good and for evil. Social success, upon 
which even the best poets of the eighteenth century had 
set the highest value, was despised by the higher minds of 
the new school. They loved to commune with nature 
and their own souls in solitude, believing that here was 
the source of true poetic inspiration. The resulting forms 
were, so far as they went, most beautiful and faultless in art ; 
they were worthy of the profound and beautiful thoughts 
which they embodied. In diction, rhythm, proportion, 
melody — in everything, in short, that constitutes beauty 
of form — no poems ever composed attained to greater 
perfection than Shelley's Skylark or Keats' Hyperion. 
Yet these forms, after all, were not of the highest order. 
The judgement of many generations has assigned the palm 
of superiority among poetic forms to the Epos and the 
Drama ; yet in neither of these did the school of poets of 
which we speak achieve any success of moment. This was 



MODERN TIMES. 215 

probably due to the influence of the theory which we are 
considering. The truth is, that no extensive and complex 
poem was ever composed without large help from that 
constructive faculty, which it was the object of the theory 
to depreciate. Even Shakspeare, whom it is — or was — 
the fashion to consider as a wild, irregular poet, writing 
from impulse, and careless of art, is known to have care- 
fully altered and re-arranged some of his plays — Hamlet, 
for instance — and by so doing to have greatly raised their 
poetic value. Virgil — Tasso — Dante — must all have 
expended a great amount of dry intellectual labour upon 
their respective masterpieces, in order to harmonise the 
parts and perfect the forms of expression. The bright 
moments are transitory, even with minds endowed with 
the highest order of imagination ; but by means of this 
labour — 

"tasks in hours of insight willed 
May be in hours of gloom fulfilled." 

But this truth was obscured, or but dimly visible, to 
minds which viewed poetry in the light we have described. 
Even Scott — true worker though he was — may be held 
to have produced poems not commensurate with the power 
that was in him, owing to a want of due pains in con- 
struction, attributable to the influence of the prevalent 
ideas. 

As in former chapters, we propose to single out one of 
the leading poets of the nineteenth century, and, in giving 
a sketch of his career, to interweave such notices of con- 
temporary poets as our limits may permit. Our choice 
falls on Sir Walter Scott. 



Poetry : — Sir Walter Scott, Shelley, &c. 

The Life of Scott, edited by his son-in-law, Lockhart, 
opens with a remarkable fragment of autobiography. 

p 4 



216 HISTOEY OP ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

Unhappily, it extends to no more than sixty pages, and 
conducts us and the writer only to the epoch where, his 
education being finished, he was about to launch forth into 
the world ; but these few manly and modest pages contain 
a record of the early years of a great life, which cannot 
easily be matched in interest. Scott was born at Edin- 
burgh on the 15th August, 1771. His father, descended 
from the border family or clan of Scott, of which the 
chieftain was the Duke of Buccleuch, was a writer to the 
signet, that is, a solicitor belonging to the highest branch 
of his profession. A lameness in the right leg, first con- 
tracted when he was eighteen months old, was the cause 
of his being sent away to pass in the country many of those 
years which most boys pass at school. He was fond of 
reading, and the books which touched Ms fancy or his 
feelings made an indelible impression on him. Forty 
years later he remembered the deep delight with which, 
at the age of thirteen, stretched under a platanus in a 
garden sloping down to the Tweed at Kelso, he had first 
read Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. "From this 
time," he says, " the love of natural beauty, more especi- 
ally when combined with ancient ruins, or the remains of 
our father's piety or splendour, became with me an in- 
satiable passion, which, if circumstances had permitted, 
I would willingly have gratified by travelling over half the 
globe." When he was nineteen years old, his father gave 
him his choice, whether to adopt his own profession, or to 
be called to the bar. Scott preferred the latter ; he studied 
the Scotch law with that conscientious and cheerful dili- 
gence which distinguished him through life, and began to 
practise as an advocate in 1792, with fair prospects of 
professional success. But the bent of nature was too 
strong for him : literature engrossed more and more of his 
time and thoughts; and his first publication, in 1796, of 
translations of Lenore, and other German poems by Burger, 
was soon followed by various contributions to Lewis' Tales 



MODEKN TIMES. 217 

of Wonder, and by the compilation of the Minstrelsy of 
the Scottish Border, many pieces in which are original, in 
the year 1802. In 1797 he had married Charlotte 
Carpenter (or Charpentier), and settled at Lasswade on the 
Esk, near "classic Hawthornden." Foreseeing that he 
would never succeed at the bar, he obtained in 1799, 
through the influence of the Duke of Buccleuch, the ap- 
pointment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, to which, in 1806, was 
added a clerkship in the Court of Session, with a salary of 
1,300L a year. Both these appointments, which involved 
magisterial and official duties of a rather burdensome 
nature, always most punctually and conscientiously dis- 
charged, Scott held till within a year before his death. 

A mind so active and powerful as that of Scott could 
not remain unaffected by the wild ferment of spirits 
caused by the breaking out of the French Eevolution. 
But in the main, the foundations of his moral and spiritual 
being remained unshaken by those tempests. His robust 
common sense taught him to attend to his own business in 
preference to devoting himself to the universal interests of 
mankind ; and his love of what was ancient and possessed 
historic fame — his fondness for local and family traditions 
— and the predilection which he had for the manners and 
ideas of the days of chivalry — made the levelling doctrines 
of the Eevolution especially hateful to him. It was other- 
wise with most of the poets, his contemporaries. Words- 
worth, after taking his degree at Cambridge, in 1791 — 
a ceremony for which he showed his contempt by devoting 
the preceding week to the perusal of Clarissa Harloive — 
went over to France, and, during a residence there of 
thirteen months, formed an intimacy with Beaupuis, a 
Girondist general, and with many of the Brissotins at Paris. 
Southey, upon whose smaller brain and livelier tempera- 
ment the French ideas acted so powerfully as to throw him 
completely off his balance, wrote the dramatic sketch of 
Wat Tyler — a most explosive and seditious production — 



218 HXSTOKY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

while at Oxford in 1794, and for some time seriously con- 
templated joining Coleridge in establishing a Pantisocratic 
community " on the banks of the Susquehanna." Cole- 
ridge, whose teeming brain produced in later life so many 
systems, or fragments of systems, was in 1794 full of his 
wonderful scheme of " Pantisocracy," an anticipation of 
the phalansteres of Fourier, and the Icaria of Cabet. In 
his ode to Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, published in 1798, 
the Jacobin poet discharges the full vials of his wrath on 
Mr. Pitt, as the chief opponent of the progress of revolu- 
tion. The three weird sisters, after expressing their deep 
obligations to the British statesman, exchange ideas on 
the subject of the best mode of rewarding him. Famine 
will gnaw the multitude till they "seize him and his 
brood;" — Slaughter will make them "tear him limb from 
limb." But Fire taxes their gratitude with poverty of 
resource : — 

" And is this all that you can do 
For him who did so much for you ? 
* * # -x * 

I alone am faithful ; I 
Cling to him everlastingly." 

In 1804 Scott removed to Ashestiel, a house overlooking 
the Tweed, near Selkirk, for the more convenient discharge 
of his magisterial duties. The locale is brought pictur- 
esquely before us in the introduction to the first canto of 
Marmion : — 

" Late, gazing down the steepy linn, 
That hems our little garden in, 
Low in its dark and narrow glen, 
You scarce the rivulet might ken, 
So thick the tangled green- wood grew, 
So feeble trilled the streamlet through : 
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen 
Through bush and brier, no longer green, 
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, 
Brawls over rock and wild cascade, 
And, foaming brown with doubled speed, 
Hurries its waters to the Tweed." 



MODERN TIMES. 219 

Early in 1805 appeared the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
the first of the series of Scott's romantic poems. Its 
composition was due to a suggestion of the beautiful 
Duchess of Buccleuch, who, upon hearing for the first time 
the wild border legend of Gilpin Horner, turned to Scott, 
and said, " Why not embody it in a poem ? " The Lay 
at once obtained a prodigious popularity. Maiinion was 
published in 1808, and severely criticised soon after by 
Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review. Scott's soreness under 
the infliction, united to his growing aversion for the politics 
of the Edinburgh, led him to concentrate all his energies 
upon the establishment of a rival review, and the Quarterly 
was accordingly set on foot in 1809. The Lady of the 
Lake appeared in 1810. Of these three poems Lockhart 
says, " The Lay is generally considered as the most natural 
and original, Marmion as the most powerful and splendid, 
and the Lady of the Lake as the most interesting, romantic, 
picturesque, and graceful." The Lay, however, was not 
entirely original. Scott himself, in the preface to the 
edition of 1829, acknowledges the obligation under which 
he lay to Coleridge's poem of Christabel. This striking 
fragment, he says, " from the singularly irregular structure 
of the stanzas, and the liberty which it allows the author 
to adapt the sound to the sense, seemed to me exactly 
suited to such an extravaganza as I meditated on the 
subject of Gilpin Horner .... It was in Christabel 
that I first found [this measure] used in serious poetry, 
and it is to Mr. Coleridge that I am bound to make the 
acknowledgement due from the pupil to his master." 

His other romantic poems, the Vision of Don Roderick, 
Rokeby, the Lord of the Lsles, the Bridal of Triermain, 
and Harold the Dauntless — all published between 1811 
and 1817 — manifest a progressive declension. Scott was 
heartily tired of Harold before it was finished, and worked 
off the concluding portion in an agony of impatience and 
dissatisfaction. When asked some years later why he had 



220 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

given up writing poetry, lie simply said, " Because Byron 
bet me." Byron had returned from his long ramble over 
the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean in 1811, and in 
the course of the five following years he published his Oriental 
Tales — the Bride of Abydos, the Giaour, the Siege of 
Corinth, and the Corsair, which, by their highly-coloured 
scenes and impassioned sentiment, made Scott's poetry 
appear by comparison tame and pale. Writing to the 
Countess Purgstall in 1821, he says: "In truth, I have 

given up poetry besides, I felt the prudence of 

giving way before the more forcible and powerful genius 
of Byron ; " and would, moreover, he adds, hesitate ei to 
exhibit in my own person the sublime attitude of the dying 
gladiator ; " alluding to the well-known passage in Childe 
Harold. 

But in 1814 Scott struck out a new path, in which 
neither Byron nor any other living man could keep pace 
with him. Eansacking an old cabinet, he happened one 
day, in the spring of that year, to lay his hand on an old 
unfinished MS., containing a fragment of a tale on the 
rising of the clans in 1745, which he had written some 
years before, but, feeling dissatisfied with, had put by. He 
now read it over, and thought that something could be 
made of it. He finished the tale in six weeks, and pub- 
lished it anonymously, under the title of Waverley, or a 
Tale of Sixty Years since. The impression which it created 
was prodigious. Waverley was soon followed by Guy 
Mannering and the Antiquary. Between 1816 and 1826 
appeared seventeen other novels from the same practised 
hand; but it was Scott's humour still to preserve the 
anonymous ; and though many literary men felt all along 
a moral certainty that the author of Waverley was, and 
could be, no other than the author of Marmion, and Mr. 
Adolphus wrote in 1821 an extremely ingenious pamphlet*, 

* Letters on the authorship of Waverley. 



MODERN TIMES. 221 

establishing the identity of the two almost to demonstration, 
yet the public had been so mystified, that it was not till 
the occasion of a public dinner at Edinburgh in 1827, 
when Scott made a formal avowal of his responsibility as 
the author of the entire series, that all uncertainty was 
removed. 

The noble and generous nature of Scott nowhere ap- 
pears more conspicuously than in the history of his relations 
with the other eminent poets of his time. Byron, stung 
by the unsparing criticism to which Jeffrey subjected his 
youthful effusions * in the Edinburgh Revieiv, had replied 
by his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which, 
including Scott among the poets of the Lake school, he 
had made him the object of a petulant and unfounded 
invective. Scott alludes to this attack from the " young 
whelp of a lord " in many of his letters, but evidently 
without the slightest feeling of bitterness. When he 
visited London in the spring of 1815, and was enthusiasti- 
cally received by the generation, just grown to manhood, 
which had been fed by his verse, he became acquainted 
with Byron, and their mutual liking was so strong, that 
the acquaintance in the course of a few weeks almost 
grew into intimacy. They met for the last time in the 
autumn of the same year, after Scott's return from Water- 
loo. Of Coleridge, Scott always spoke with interest and 
admiration, and endeavoured to serve him more than 
once. With Southey he kept up a pretty constant corre- 
spondence, and besides serving him in other ways, procured 
the laureateship for him in 1813, after having declined it 
for himself. Towards Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, whose 
touchy and irritable pride would have provoked any less 
generous patron, his kindness was unvarying and inde- 
fatigable. With Moore he became acquainted on the 
occasion of his visit to Ireland in 1825, and received him 

* The Hours of Idleness, 



222 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

at Abbotsford later in the same year. The Irish poet 
made a very favourable impression. Scott says in his diary 

— (i There is a manly frankness, with perfect ease and 
good breeding, about him, which is delightful. Not the 
least touch of the poet or the pedant. A little, very 
little man ; . . . . but not insignificant, like Lewis. . . . 
His countenance is plain but expressive; — so very animated, 
especially in speaking or singing, that it is far more 
interesting than the finest features could have made it." 
Of Scott's intercourse with Sir Humphry Davy — himself 
a thorough poet in nature — Lockhart relates an amusing 
anecdote : — Scott, Davy, the biographer, and a rough 
Scotch friend of Sir Walter's, named Laidlaw, were to- 
gether at Abbotsford in 1820; the two latter being silent 
and admiring listeners during the splendid colloquies of 
the poet and the philosopher. At last, Laidlaw broke out 
with — ( Gude preserve us ; this is a very superior occasion ! 
Eh, sirs ! I wonder if Shakspeare and Bacon ever met to 
screw ilk other up ! ' 

In 1826 occurred the crash of Scott's fortunes, through 
the failure of the houses of Constable and Ballantyne. 
With the Ballantynes, who were printers, Scott had been 
in partnership since 1805, though even his dearest friends 
were ignorant of the fact. How bravely he bore himself 
in the midst of the utter ruin which came upon him — how 
strenuously he applied his wonderful powers of thought 
and work to the task of retrieving his position — how he 
struggled on till health, faculties, and life itself gave way 

— these are matters which belong to the story of the man 
rather than of the author. The novels and other works 
composed between 1826 and his death in 1832, though 
they fill very many volumes, manifest a progressive 
decline of power. Woodstock was in preparation at the 
time when the stroke came ; but there is no falling off in 
the concluding portion, such as might tell of the agonies 
of mind through which the writer was passing. To Wood- 



MODERN TIMES. 223 

stock, however, succeeded Anne of Geierstein, the Fair 
Maid of Perth, Count Robert of Paris, and Castle Danger- 
ous, all of which, but especially the last two, betoken a 
gradual obscuration and failure of the powers of imagi- 
nation and invention. In 1827 he published a Life of 
Napoleon Bonaparte. A work on Demonology and Witch- 
craft, and the Tales of a Grandfather, nearly complete 
the list. In the summer of 1832 he visited Italy in a 
frigate which the government placed at his disposal, to 
recruit, if that were possible, the vital energies of a frame 
which, massive and muscular as was the mould in which 
nature had cast it, was now undermined and worn out by 
care and excessive toil. But it was too late ; and, feeling 
that the end was near, Scott hurried homewards to breathe 
his last in his beloved native land. After gradually sinking 
for two months, he expired at Abbotsford, in the midst of 
his children, on the afternoon of a calm September day in 
1832. 

We proceed to name the principal works of the other 
poets, mentioning them in the order of their deaths. 

John Keats, author of Endymion and Hyperion, was 
cut off by consumption in 1821, in his twenty-sixth year. 
He was the friend of Shelley, who mourned his loss in the 
exquisite elegy of Adonais. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, born in 1792, embraced with 
fervour, even from his school-boy days, both the destruc- 
tive and the constructive ideas of the revolutionary school. 
He was enthusiastically convinced that the great majority 
of mankind was, and with trifling exceptions had always 
been, enslaved by custom, by low material thoughts, by 
tyranny, and by superstition, and he no less fervently be- 
lieved in the perfectibility of the individual and of society, 
as the result of the bursting of these bonds, and of a phi- 
losophical and philanthropic system of education. Among 
other restraints, he spurned at first even those of rhyme ; 
the lyrical portions of Queen Mab, his earliest poem, are 



224 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

so many wild lawless bursts of rushing verse, with a 
certain resemblance to the choruses of iEschylus. The 
Revolt of Islam, an ideal picture of the struggle main- 
tained by an awakened people against the beliefs and 
institutions that it had previously held sacred, but which 
in the heated fancy of the poet appeared as the causes of 
all its misery, was published in 1817. It is in twelve 
cantos, the metre being the Spenserian stanza. To a mind 
like Shelley's it may be conceived how great was the 
attraction of the story of Prometheus, the great Titan who 
rebelled against the gods. To this attraction we owe the 
drama of Prometheus Unbound, His tragedy of The 
Cenci, written at Eome in 1820, shows great dramatic 
power, but the nature of the story renders it impossible 
that it should be represented on the stage. The lyrical 
drama of Hellas, written in 1821, was suggested by the 
efforts which the insurgent Greeks were then making to 
shake off the yoke of their Turkish tyrants. Shelley 
regarded with extreme indignation the conversion of Words- 
worth to conservative sentiments, and he gave vent to his 
feelings by writing the satire of Peter Bell the Third. 
Among his shorter poems may be specified — the Sensi- 
tive Plant, the lovely ethereal lyric To a Skylark, The 
Cloud, Stanzas written in dejection near Naples, and 
Epipsychidion. This wonderfully gifted man was sud- 
denly snatched from existence in July 1822, being drowned 
by the upsetting of his boat in the Grulf of Spezzia. 

Byron represents the universal reaction of the nineteenth 
century against the ideas of the eighteenth. We have 
seen the literary reaction exemplified in Scott; but the 
protest of Byron was more comprehensive, and reached to 
deeper regions of thought. Moody and misanthropical, he 
rejected the whole manner of thought of his predecessors ; 
and the scepticism of the eighteenth century suited him 
as little as its popular belief. Unbelievers of the class of 
Hume and Gibbon did not suffer on account of being 



MODERN TIMES. 225 

without faith ; their turn of mind was Epicurean ; the 
world of sense and intelligence furnished them with as 
much of enjoyment as they required, and they had no 
quarrel with the social order which secured to them the 
tranquil possession of their daily pleasures. But Byron 
had a mind of that daring and impetuous temper which, 
while it rushes into the path of doubt suggested by cooler 
heads, presently recoils from the consequences of its own 
act, and shudders at the moral desolation which scepticism 
spreads over its life. He proclaimed to the world his 
misery and despair ; and everywhere his words seemed to 
touch a sympathetic chord throughout the cultivated 
society of Europe. In Childe Harold, — a poem of re- 
flection and sentiment, of which the first two cantos were 
published in 1812 — and also in the dramas of Manfred 
and Cain, the peculiar characteristics of Byron's genius 
are most forcibly represented. The Hours of Idleness, his 
first work, written in 1807, when he was but nineteen, 
are poems truly juvenile, and show little promise of the 
power and versatility to which his mind afterwards at- 
tained. The satire of English Bards and Scotch Re- 
viewer 's, already referred to, was written in 1809. All the 
leading poets of the day came under the lash ; but to all, 
except Southey, he subsequently made the amende honor- 
able in some way or other. With the laureate he was 
never on good terms ; and their mutual dislike broke out 
at various times into furious discord. Byron could not for- 
give in Southey, whose opinions in youth had been so 
wild and Jacobinical, the intolerant Toryism of his man- 
hood. Southey's feelings towards Byron seem to have been 
a mixture of dread, dislike, and disapproval. In the 
preface to the Vision of Judgment, a poem on the death 
of Greorge III., Southey spoke with great severity of the 
" Satanic school" of authors, and their leading spirit, 
alluding to Byron's Don Juan, which had recently ap- 
peared anonymously. This led to a fierce literary warfare, 

Q 



226 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

conducted in the columns of newspapers and in other 
modes, which Byron would have cut short by a challenge, 
but his friends dissuaded him from sending it. It is little 
creditable to Southey that the most acrimonious and 
insulting of all his letters appeared in the Courier a few 
months after Byron had died in Missolonghi, a martyr to 
the cause of the liberty of Greece. Don Juan, — a strange 
medley, in which satire, narrative, description, and criti- 
cism are jumbled together without any principle of ar- 
rangement, — was composed in the eight-line stanza, the 
ottava rima of the Italian poets. Byron died in 1824. 

Crabbe, the author of several didactic narrative poems 
of great merit, died at an advanced age in 1832. His 
most finished and powerful work, the Tales of the Hall, 
appeared in 1819. 

Coleridge, the (i noticeable man with large grey eyes," * 
whose equal in original power of genius has rarely ap- 
peared amongst men, published his first volume of 
poems in 1796. His project of a Pantisocratic community 
to be founded in America has been already noticed. 
Visionary as it was, he received Southey's announcement 
of his withdrawal from the scheme with a tempest of 
indignation. For some years after his marriage with the 
sister of Southey's wife, he supported himself by writing for 
the newspapers and other literary work. Feeble health, 
and an excessive nervous sensibility, led him, about the 
year 1799, to commence the practice of taking opium, 
and he was enslaved to this miserable habit for twelve or 
fourteen years. Its paralysing effects on the mind and 
character none better knew, or has more accurately de- 
scribed, than himself. What impression he produced 
at this period upon others may be gathered from a 
passage in one of Southey's letters, written in 1804. 
" Coleridge," he says, " is worse in body than you seem to 

* Wordsworth. 



MODERN TIMES. 227 

believe ; but the main cause is bis management of himself, 
or rather want of management. His mind is in a perpetual 
St. Vitus's dance — eternal activity without action. At 
times, he feels mortified that he should have done so little, 
but this feeling never produces any exertion. I will begin 
to-morrow, he says, and thus he has been all his life long 
letting to-day slip. . . . Poor fellow ! there is no one 
thing which gives me so much pain as the witnessing such 
a waste of unequalled power." 

Coleridge's poetical works fill three small volumes, and 
consist of Juvenile Poems, Sibylline Leaves, the Ancient 
Mariner, Christabel, and the plays of Remorse, Zapolya, 
and Wallenstein, — the last being a translation of the play 
of Schiller. Coleridge's latter years were passed under 
the roof of Mr. G-illman, a surgeon, at Highgate. One who 
then sought his society has drawn the following picture of 
the white-haired sage in the evening of his chequered 
life : — 

" Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, 
looking down on London and its smoke tumult, like a sage 
escaped from the inanity of life's battle, attracting towards him 
the thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. 
His express contributions to poetry, philosophy, or any sj^ecific 
province of human literature or enlightenment had been small and 
sadly intermittent ; but he had, especially among young inquiring 
men, a higher than literary, a kind of prophetic or magician, cha- 
racter. ... A subhme man ; who, alone in those dark days, 
had saved his crown of spiritual manhood ; escaping from the 
black materialisms and revolutionary deluges, with ' God, Freedom, 
Immortality,' still his ; a king of men. The practical intellects 
of the world did not much heed him, or carelessly reckoned him 
a metaphysical dreamer ; but to the rising spirits of the young 
generation he had this dusky subhme character ; and sat there as 
a kind of Magus, girt in mystery and enigma, his Do dona oak- 
grove (Mr. Gillman's house at Highgate) whispering strange 
things, uncertain whether oracles or jargon."* 

* Carlyle's Life of Sterling. 
Q 2 



228 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Mr. Carlyle goes on to speak of the disappointing and 
hazy character of Coleridge's conversation, copious and 
rich as it was, and occasionally running clear into glorious 
passages of light and beauty. Such, indeed, is the general 
effect of his life, and of all that he ever did. One takes 
up the Biographia Liter aria (1817), imagining that one 
will at least find some consistent and intelligible account 
of the time, place, motive, and other circumstances 
bearing upon the composition of his different works ; but 
there is scarcely anything of the kind. The book pos- 
sesses an interest of its own, on account of the subtle 
criticism upon Wordsworth's poetry and poetical prin- 
ciples, which occupies the chief portion of it ; but when you 
have arrived at the end of all introductory matter, and at 
the point where the biography should commence, the 
book is done ; it is all preliminaries, — a solid porch to an 
air-drawn temple. Coleridge died in 1834. 

Southey left Oxford as a marked man on account of his 
extreme revolutionary sympathies, and, being unwilling to 
take orders, and unable, from want of means, to study 
medicine, was obliged, as he tells us, " perforce to enter 
the muster-roll of authors." The prevailing taste for what 
was extravagant and romantic, exemplified in Mrs. Kad- 
cliffe's novels and Kotzebue's plays, perhaps led him to 
select a wild Arabian legend as the groundwork of his 
first considerable poem, Thalaba the Destroyer, published 
in 1801. Thalaba, like Shelley's Queen Mab, is written 
in irregular Pindaric strophes without rhyme. Madoc, an 
epic poem in blank verse, founded on the legend of a 
voyage made by a Welsh prince to America in the twelfth 
century, and of his founding a colony there, appeared in 
1805 ; and the Curse of Kehama, in which are represented 
the awful forms of the Hindu Pantheon, and the vast and 
gorgeous imagery of the Hindu poetry, in 1811. In 
1803 Southey settled at Greta Hall, near Keswick; and 
here the remainder of his life was spent, in the incessant 



MODERN TIMES. 229 

prosecution of his various literary undertakings. After 
the death of his wife, in 1837, he became an altered man. 
" So completely," he writes, " was she part of myself, that 
the separation makes me feel like a different creature. 
While she was herself I had no sense of growing old." 
After his second marriage in 1839, his mind began gradu- 
ally to fail, and the lamp of reason at last went entirely 
out. In this sad condition he died in the year 1843. 

Campbell's first production, the Pleasures of Hope 
(1799), was conceived in the didactic and moralising spirit 
of the eighteenth century. It was probably suggested by 
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination. Adopting the nar- 
rative style, in which Scott had been so successful, Camp- 
bell wrote in 1709 his Gertrude of Wyoming, a tale of 
which the scene is laid in Pennsylvania, and the interest is> 
derived from the customs and incidents of Indian life. 
But it is on account of his ballads and other lyrics that 
his poetic fame will live. His best performances of this 
kind are the patriotic songs of The Battle of the Baltic 
and Ye Mariners of England, the war lyric of Hohen- 
linden (said to be founded on his own observation, for he 
witnessed the battle), and the pathetic stanzas of the 
Soldier's Dream and the Exile of Erin* The Last Man 
is interesting from the nature of the subject : it gives us 
the soliloquy of the last representative of the human race 
uttered from among tombs upon the crumbling earth; 
but the effort is somewhat too ambitious, and many ex- 
pressions and images are overstrained. Campbell died 
in 1844. 

Wordsworth was in his twentieth year at the time of 
the taking of the Bastile, and hailed with the confiding 
enthusiasm of youth what seemed to be the dawning of a 

* The authorship of this has been claimed for Reynolds, an Irish poet ; 
but Mr. Lover, in his Irish Minstrelsy, has shown that there is no good 
reason to doubt its exclusive composition by Campbell. 

Q 3 



230 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

new and happier epoch for mankind. He paid a long 
visit to France, but retired from the darkening scene be- 
fore it was too late, and returned to his native valleys. 
He would enter no profession ; but, accompanied by his 
sister, to whose affection and intelligent sympathy he never 
concealed his deep obligation, and supporting himself and 
her on a sum of money bequeathed to him by a college 
friend, whom he had nursed and watched over in sickness 
to the last consummation of a quick decline, he roamed 
from one country place to another, observing rural man- 
ners, and feeding his meditative soul on the aspects of 
natural beauty, till, in 1799, he finally settled at Grrasmere, 
where, and at the neighbouring village of Eydal, the 
remainder of his life was passed. In 1798 he published 
the Lyrical Ballads, to the second edition of which he 
prefixed a very remarkable preface, expounding the 
poetical principles which the Ballads were intended to 
illustrate. This preface is written in the eloquent and 
enthusiastic tone of a man who believes himself to have 
discovered principles of surpassing importance, till then 
neglected, the recognition of which — inevitable sooner or 
later — would revolutionise the whole art of poetry. The 
reader who desires to see a profound and masterly analysis 
s>£ these principles, should consult the chapters devoted to 
the subject in Coleridge's Biographia Liter aria. There 
he will find what was true in these views separated from 
what was false, with the subtlest discrimination. Admit- 
ting the force and truth of Wordsworth's energetic denun- 
ciation of "poetic diction," meaning thereby a set of 
conventional images and phrases, inadmissible in prose, 
which inferior poets are accustomed to palm off upon the 
public as indispensable to true poetry, Coleridge showed, 
on the other hand, that Wordsworth had failed to grasp 
the true and essential distinction between poetry and 
prose, and so had been led partially to confound the re- 
quirements of both. Some few of the Lyrical Ballads, 



MODERN TIMES. 231 

and much of Wordsworth's later poetry, are certainly as 
very prose as ever was written ; on the other hand, both 
in this first collection and in his later compositions, are 
many most beautiful poems, which strictly conform to all 
the sound and ancient rules of the poetic art, which have 
been acted upon by all great poets since the time of 
Homer, and enforced by all great critics from the days of 
Aristotle. But the Lyrical Ballads did not receive in 
other quarters such genial criticism as that of Coleridge. 
The lofty and somewhat oracular tone of the preface pro- 
voked the reviewers beyond measure, and the few faulty 
or vapid poems in the collection — Peter Bell, Goody 
Blake and Harry Gill, The Idiot Boy, and one or two 
more, — were at once seized upon, loaded with ridicule, 
and quoted as fair specimens of the entire work. The sale 
was consequently stopped ; yet from the first Wordsworth 
found a few ardent admirers, who never ceased to advocate 
his cause, and whose steady enthusiasm gradually drew 
the public round to their side. But full thirty years 
elapsed before Wordsworth found favour at the hands of 
the leading reviews. 

Two more volumes of poems appeared in 1807 ; and 
the Excursion, a philosophical poem of great length, 
forming, however, but the second part of a still larger 
work, the Recluse, was published in 1814. The Prelude, 
being an introduction to the same work, though finished 
in 1805, was not published till 1850. The Excursion was 
nearly as ill received by the reviewers as the Lyrical 
Ballads had been ; but Wordsworth bore all hostile cri- 
ticism with a stout heart. "Let the age," he wrote*, 
te continue to love its own darkness ; I shall continue to 
write, with, I trust, the light of Heaven upon me." His 
own account of the design of the work, given in the intro- 
duction, which, like the Excursion itself, is in blank verse, 
is well worth extracting : — 

* See his Life by Dr. Christopher "Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 52. 
Q 4 



232 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUKE. 

" Beauty, a living Presence of the earth, 
Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms \ 
Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed 
From earth's materials — waits upon my steps ; 
Pitches her tents before me as I move, 
An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves 
Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old 
Sought in the Atlantic Main — why should they be 
A history only of departed things, 
Or a mere fiction of what never was ? 
For the discerning intellect of Man, 
When wedded to this goodly universe 
In love and holy passion, shall find these 
A simple produce of the common day. 
— I, long before the blissful hour arrives, 
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse 
Of this great consummation ; — and, by words 
Which speak of nothing more than what we are, 
Would I arouse the sensual from their s]eep 
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain 
To noble raptures ; while my voice proclaims 
How exquisitely the individual Mind 
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less 
Of the whole species) to the external World 
Is fitted : — and how exquisitely too, 
Theme this but little heard of among men, 
The external World is fitted to the Mind." 

% In 1813, having received through the influence of Lord 
Lonsdale the appointment of distributor of stamps for 
the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland, Words- 
worth settled at Bydal Mount. In 1827 he published his 
entire poetical works in five volumes, arranging them in 
different classes, not — as was the ancient custom — ac- 
cording to the form or mould in which they were respect- 
ively cast, — as Dramatic, Lyrical, Pastoral, &c, — but 
according to the faculties of mind predominant in their 
* production, as Poems of the Fancy, Poems of the Imagi- 
nation, Poems of Sentiment and Eeflection, &c. This 
new method of classification marks the invasion of the 
realm of Poetry by the increasingly self-conscious, medi- 
tative, — in one word — subjective, spirit, which is charac- 



MODERN TIMES. 233 

teristic of modern times. The new conceptions will no 
longer fit into the old moulds, but either overflow them, 
or clothe themselves with new and more flexible forms. 
Thus we have dramas, such as Philip Van Artevelde, not 
adapted for the stage, and lyrics, such as many of Words- 
worth's, in which Thought is substituted for Passion ; while, 
on the other hand, we have, and shall continue to have, 
innumerable poems, to which the old names are altogether 
inapplicable, and which must therefore be grouped in 
some such way as Wordsworth has here attempted. 

In 1843, upon the death of Southey, Wordsworth was 
appointed poet-laureate. Peel's letters on the occasion 
reflect equal honour upon him and the poet. He had the 
happiness of preserving his faculties unclouded, and almost 
unweakened, to the last; dying at Eydal Mount in his 
eightieth year, after a short illness, in 1850. 

Moore, though of humble parentage, was enabled by his 
own striking talents, and by the self-denying and intel- 
ligent exertions of his excellent mother, to receive and 
profit by the best education that was to be obtained in his 
native Ireland. He went up to London in 1799 to study 
for the bar, with little money in his purse, but furnished 
with an introduction to Lord Moira, and with the manu- 
script of his translation of Anacreon. Through Lord 
Moira he was presented to the Prince Eegent, and per- 
mitted to dedicate his translation to him. The work ap- 
peared, and of course delighted the gay and jovial circle 
at Carlton House ; Moore thus obtained the requisite start 
in London society, and his own wit and social tact accom- 
plished the rest. Through Lord Moira's interest he was 
appointed, in 1803, to the Eegistrarship of the Bermudas. 
But he could not long endure the solitude and storms of 
the " vexed Bermoothes," and, leaving his office to be dis- 
charged by a deputy, he returned, after a tour in the 
United States, to England. Some of his prettiest lyrics, 
e. g. the Indian Bark and the Lake of the Dismal Sivam/p, 



234 HISTOEY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

are memorials of this American journey. In the poems 
of Corruption, Intolerance, and The Sceptic, published 
in 1808 and 1809, he tried his hand at moral satire, in 
imitation of Pope. But the role of a censor morum was 
ill suited to the cheerful, convivial temper of Tom Moore ; 
and, though there are plenty of witty and stinging lines in 
these satires *, they achieved no great success. The true 
bent of his genius was to lyrical composition; and in 
writing the Irish Melodies, or, to speak more correctly, in 
adapting words to those melodies, — a task spread over 
twenty-seven years, from 1807 to 1834, — his talents, no 
less than his deepest feelings, found the fittest possible 
medium for their development. He wrote his Sacred 
Songs in 1816. Lalla Roohh, consisting of four Oriental 
tales, united by a slight connecting framework, appeared 
in 1817. Though unsuccessful in moral or general satire, 
Moore came out most effectively in the departments of 
political and personal satire. His Epistles, and The Fudge 
Family in Paris, are incomparable in their kind. In his 
later years Moore took to prose writing; compiled the 
Life of Sheridan (1825), and the Life and Letters of 
Lord Byron (1830) ; and also produced the Epicurean, a 
History of Ireland, the Memoirs of Captain Rock, and 
the Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Reli- 
gion. His mind, like Southey's, was gone for several 
years before his death, which occurred in 1852. 



Prose Writers, 1800—1850. 

We can give only the briefest summary of what has 
been done in the principal departments of prose writing 
during this period. In Prose Fiction, besides the Waverley 

* For instance — 

" But bees, on flowers alighting, cease their hum ; 
So, settling upon places, Whigs grow dumb" 



MODERN" TIMES. 235 

novels, which have been already noticed, must be specified 
Jane Austen's admirable tales of common life — Pride 
and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey 9 &c. 
— which their beautiful and too short-lived authoress 
commenced as a sort of protest against the romantic and 
extravagant nonsense of Mrs. Eadcliffe's novels, and Miss 
Edgeworth's hardly less admirable stories of Irish life and 
character. In Oratory, though this period falls far below 
that which preceded it, we may name the speeches of 
Canning, Sheil, O'Connell, and Sir Eobert Peel. In poli- 
tical writing and pamphleteering, the chief names are — 
William Cobbett, with his strong sense and English hearti- 
ness, author of the Englishman's Register — Scott (whose 
political squib — the Letters of Malachi Malagrowther — 
had the effect of arresting the progress of a measure upon 
which the ministry had resolved) — Southey — and Sydney 
Smith. In Journalism, the present period witnessed the 
growth of a great and vital change, whereby the most in- 
fluential portion of a newspaper is no longer, as it was in 
the days of Junius, the columns containing the letters of 
well-informed correspondents, but the leading articles 
representing the opinions of the newspaper itself. In 
prose satire, the inexhaustible yet kindly wit of Sydney 
Smith has furnished us with some incomparable pro- 
ductions ; witness his Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, his 
articles on Christianity in Hindostan, and his letter to the 
Times on Pennsylvanian repudiation. In History, we 
have the unfinished Eoman history of Arnold, the Greek 
histories of Mitford, Thirlwall, and Grote, the English 
history of Lingard, and the work similarly named (though 
" History of the Ke volution and of the Keign of William 
III." would be an exacter title) by Lord Macaulay. In 
Biography, — out of a countless array of works, — may be 
particularised the lives of Scott, Wilberforce, and Arnold, 
compiled respectively by Lockhart, the brothers Arch- 
deacon Wilberforce and the Bishop of Oxford, and Dr. 



236 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Stanley. As to other works subsidiary to history, — such as 
accounts of Voyages and Travels, — their name is legion ; 
yet perhaps none of their authors has achieved a literary 
distinction comparable to that which was conferred on 
Lamartine by his Voyage en Orient. In Theology, we 
have the works of Eobert Hall and Eowland Hill, repre- 
senting the dissenting and Low Church sections ; those of 
Arnold, Whately, and Hampden, representing what are 
sometimes called Broad Church, or Liberal, opinions ; 
those of Froude, Pusey, Davison, Keble, Sewell, &c, 
representing various sections of the great High Church 
party ; and lastly, those of Milner, Dr. Doyle — the incom- 
parable " J. K. L." — Wiseman, and Newman, on the side 
of the Catholics. In Philosophy, we have the metaphy- 
sical fragments of Coleridge, the ethical philosophy of 
Bentham, the logic of Whately and Mill, and the political 
economy of the last-mentioned writers, and also Eicardo 
and Harriet Martineau. Among the essay- writers, must be 
singled out Charles Lamb, author of the Essays of Mia, 
which appeared in 1823. In other departments of thought 
and theory, e. g. Criticism, we have the literary criticism of 
Hazlitt and Thackeray, and the Art-criticism of Mr. Euskin. 



CRITICAL SECTION 



239 



CRITICAL SECTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

POETRY. 

Definition of Literature — Classification of Poetical 
Compositions. 

English literature is new to be considered under that which 
is its natural and legitimate arrangement ; that arrange- 
ment, namely, of which the principle is, not sequence in 
time, but affinity in subject; and which aims, by comparing 
together works of the same kind, to arrive with greater 
ease and certainty than is possible by the chronological 
method, at a just estimate of their relative merits. To 
effect this critical aim, it is evident that a classification 
of the works which compose a literature is an essential, 
prerequisite. This we shall now proceed to do. With 
the critical process, for which the proposed classification 
is to serve as the foundation, we shall, in the present 
work, be able to make but scanty progress. Some por- 
tions of it we shall attempt, with the view rather of illus- 
trating the conveniences of the method, than of seriously 
undertaking to fill in the vast outline which will be 
furnished by the classification. 

First of all, what is literature ? In the most extended 
sense of the word, it may be taken for the whole written 
thought of man ; and in the same acceptation a national 
literature is the whole written thought of a particular 
nation. But this definition is too wide for our present 



240 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

purpose; it would include such books as Fearne on 
Contingent Remainders, and such periodicals as the 
Lancet, or the Shipping Gazette. If the student of lite- 
rature were called upon to examine the stores of thought 
and knowledge which the different professions have col- 
lected and published, each for the use of its own mem- 
bers, his task would be endless. We must abstract, 
therefore, all works addressed, owing to the specialty of 
their subject-matter, to particular classes of men ; e.g., 
law books, medical books, works on moral theology, 
rubrical works, &c, — in short, all strictly professional li- 
terature. Again, the above definition would include all 
scientific works, which would be practically inconvenient, 
and would tend to obscure the really marked distinction 
that exists between literature and science. We must 
further abstract, therefore, all works in which the words 
are used as ciphers or signs for the purpose of commu- 
nicating objective truth, not as organs of the writer's per- 
sonality. All strictly scientific works are thus excluded. 
In popularised science, exemplified by such books as the 
Architecture of the Heavens, or the Vestiges of the 
Natural History of the Creation, the personal element 
comes into play ; such books are, therefore, rightly classed 
as literature. What remains after these deductions is 
literature in the strict or narrower sense; that is, the 
assemblage of those works which are neither addressed to 
particular classes, nor use words merely as the signs of 
things, but which, treating of subjects that interest man 
as man, and using words as the vehicles and exponents of 
thoughts, appeal to the general human intellect and to the 
common human heart. 

Literature, thus defined, may be divided into — 

1. Poetry. 

2. Prose writings. 

For the present, we shall confine our attention to 
Poetry. The subject is so vast as not to be easily 



EPIC POETRY. 241 

manageable, and many of the different kinds slide into 
each other by such insensible gradations, that any class- 
ification must be to a certain extent arbitrary ; still the 
following division may, perhaps, be found useful : — Poetry 
may be classed under eleven designations, — 1, Epic, 
2. Dramatic, 3. Heroic, 4. Narrative, 5. Didactic, 6. Sa- 
tirical and Humorous, 7. Descriptive and Pastoral, 
8. Lyrical (including ballads and sonnets), 9. Elegiac, 
10. Epistles, 11. Miscellaneous Poems; — the latter class 
including all those pieces, — very numerous in modern 
times — which cannot be conveniently referred to any of 
the former heads, but which we shall endeavour further to 
subdivide upon some rational principle. 

Epic Poetry : — " Paradise Lost " ; Minor Epic Poems. 

The epic poem has ever been regarded as in its nature 
the most noble of all poetic performances. Its essential 
properties were laid down by Aristotle in the Poetics more 
than two thousand years ago, and they have not varied 
since. For, as Pope says, — 

" These rules of old, discovered not devised, 
Are nature still, but nature methodized." 

The subject of the epic poem must be some one, great, 
complex action. The principal personages must belong- 
to the high places of society, and must be grand and 
elevated in their ideas. The measure must be of a 
sonorous dignity befitting the subject. The action is 
developed by a mixture of dialogue, soliloqu}^, and narra- 
tive. Briefly to express its main requisites, — the epic 
poem treats of one great, complex action, in a grand 
style, and with fulness of detail. 

English literature possesses one great epic poem, — 
Milton's Paradise Lost Not a few of our poets have 
wooed the epic muse; and the results are seen in such 

K 



242 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

poems as Cowley's Davideis, Blackmore's Prince Arthur, 
(Hover's Leonidas, and Wilkie's Epigoniad. But these 
productions do not deserve a serious examination. The 
Leonidas, which is in blank verse, possesses a certain 
rhetorical dignity, but has not enough of variety and 
poetic truth to interest deeply any but juvenile readers. 
Pope's translation of the Iliad may in a certain sense be 
called an English epic ; for while it would be vain to seek 
in it for the true Homeric spirit and manner, the translator 
has, in compensation, adorned it with many excellences of 
his own. It abounds with passages which notably illus- 
trate Pope's best qualities ; — his wonderful intellectual 
vigour, his terseness, brilliancy, and ingenuity. But we 
shall have other and better opportunities of noticing these 
characteristics of that great poet. 

The first regular criticism on the Paradise Lost is 
found in the Spectator, in a series of articles written by 
Addison. Addison compares Milton's poem to the Iliad 
and the jEneid, first with respect to choice of subject, 
secondly to the mode of treatment, and in both particulars 
he gives the palm to Milton. 

Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Milton, speaks in more dis- 
criminating terms : — 

" The defects and faults of Paradise Lost — for faults 
and defects every work of man must have — it is the 
business of impartial criticism to discover. As, in dis- 
playing the excellence of Milton, I have not made long 
quotations, because of selecting beauties there had been 
no end, I shall in the same general manner mention that 
which seems to deserve censure ; for what Englishman can 
take delight in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen 
the reputation of Milton, diminish in some degree the 
honour of our country ? " 

Coleridge, in his Literary Remains, gives a criticism 
of the Paradise Lost, parts of which are valuable. He 
appears to rank Milton as an epic poet above Homer and 



EPIC POETRY. 243 

above Dante. Lastly, Mr. Hallam, in his History of 
European Literature, while he does not fail to point out 
several defects in the Paradise Lost, which Addison and 
other critics had overlooked, yet inclines to place the 
poem, as a whole, above the Divina Comrnedia of Dante. 

In our examination of the poem, we shall consider, — 
1. the choice of subject; 2. the artistic structure of the 
work; 3. details in the mode of treatment, whether re- 
lating to personages, or events, or poetical scenery ; 4. the 
style, metre, and language of the poem. 

1. With regard to the choice of subject, it has been 
repeatedly commended in the highest terms. Coleridge, 
for instance, says, " In Homer, the supposed importance 
of the subject, as the first effort of confederated Greece, 
is an afterthought of the critics ; and the interest, such 
as it is, derived from the events themselves, as distinguished 
from the manner of representing them, is very languid to 
all but Greeks. It ^ a Greek poem. The superiority of 
the Paradise Lost is obvious in this respect, that the 
interest transcends the limits of a nation." 

There cannot, .of course, be two opinions with regard to 
the importance and universal interest of the subject of the 
Paradise Lost, considered in itself; but whether it is a 
surpassingly good subject for an epic poem is a different 
question. One obvious difficulty connected with it is its 
brevity and deficiency in incident : it is not sufficiently 
complex. Compare the subjects chosen by Homer, Virgil, 
and Tasso. The Wrath of Achilles, — its causes, — its 
consequences, — its implacability in spite of the most 
urgent entreaties, — its final appeasement, and the partial 
reparation of the calamities to which it had led, form one 
entire whole, the developement of which admits of an 
inexhaustible variety in the management of the details. 
Similarly, the settlement of iEneas in Italy, involving an 
account, by way of episode, in the 2nd and 3rd books of 
the JEneid, of the circumstances under which he had been 

B 2 



244 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

driven from Troy, with a description of the obstacles 
which were interposed to that settlement, whether by 
divine or human agency, and of the means by which 
those obstacles were finally overcome, and the end fore- 
shadowed from the commencement attained, — this subject 
again, though forming one whole, and capable of being 
embraced in a single complex conception, presents an 
indefinite number of parts and incidents suitable for 
poetic treatment. In both cases, tradition supplied the 
poet with a large original stock of materials, upon which 
again his imagination was free to re-act, and either 
invent, modify, or suppress, according to the require- 
ments of his art. In Tasso's great epic, the subject of 
which is the triumphant conclusion of the first Crusade, 
and the deliverance of Jerusalem from the unbelievers, 
the materials are evidently so abundant that the poet's 
skill has to be exercised in selection rather than in 
expansion. Now, let us see how the case stands with 
regard to Milton's subject. Here the materials consist of 
the first three chapters in the book of Genesis, and a 
few verses in the Apocalypse ; there is absolutely nothing 
more. But it may be said that, as Tasso has invented 
many incidents, and Virgil also, so Milton had full liberty 
to amplify, out of the resources of his own imagination, 
the brief and simple notices by which Scripture conveys 
the narrative of the Fall of Man. Here, however, his 
subject hampers him, and rightly so. The subjects taken 
by Virgil and Tasso fall within the range of ordinary 
human experience ; whatever they might invent, therefore, 
in addition to the materials which they had to their hands, 
provided it were conceived with true poetic feeling, and 
were of a piece with the other portions of the poem, 
would be strictly homogeneous with the entire subject- 
matter. But the nature of Milton's subject did not allow 
him this liberty of amplification and expansion. That 
which is recorded of the fall of man forms a unique 



EPIC POETRY. 245 

chapter in history ; all experience presents us with nothing 
like it ; . and the danger is, lest if we add anything of our 
own to the narration — so brief, so apparently simple, 
yet withal so profoundly mysterious, — which is presented 
to us in Holy Writ, we at last, without intending it, 
produce something quite unlike our original. Whether 
Milton has succeeded in avoiding this danger is a point 
which we shall consider presently; but that he felt the 
difficulty is clear, for he has avoided as much as possible 
inventing any new incident, and, to gain the length re- 
quired for an epic poem, has introduced numerous long 
dialogues and descriptive passages. 

2. The internal structure of this poem, as a work of art, 
has been admired by more than one distinguished critic. 
There is, Coleridge observes, a totality observable in the 
Paradise Lost: — -it has a definite beginning, middle, 
and end, such as few other epic poems can boast of. The 
first line of the poem speaks of the disobedience of our 
first parents ; the evil power which led them to disobey 
is then referred to ; and the circumstances of its revolt and 
overthrow are briefly given. The steps by which Satan 
proceeds on his mission of temptation are described in the 
second and third books. In the fourth, Adam and Eve 
are first introduced. Part of the fifth, the sixth, seventh, 
and eighth books, are episodical, and contain the story in 
detail of the war in heaven between the good and the 
rebel angels, the final overthrow and expulsion of the 
latter, and the creation of the earth and man. All this is 
related to Adam by the angel Eaphael, to serve him by 
way of warning, lest he also should fall into the sin of 
disobedience and revolt. In the ninth book occurs the 
account of the actual transgression. In the tenth we have 
the sentence pronounced, and some of the immediate con- 
sequences of the fall described. The greater part of the 
eleventh and twelfth books is another episode, being the 
unfolding to Adam, by the Archangel Michael, partly in 

B 3 



246 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

vision, partly by way of narrative, of the future fortunes 
of his descendants. At the end of the twelfth book we 
have the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of Paradise, with 
which the poem naturally closes. 

The Paradise Lost thus forms one connected whole, 
and it is worked out with great vigour and carefulness of 
treatment throughout. Many passages, especially at the 
beginnings of the books, have a character of unsurpassed 
dignity and sublimity ; the language, though often rough 
or harsh, and sometimes grammatically faulty, is never 
feeble or wordy ; and a varied learning supplies the poet 
with abundant materials for simile and illustration. Still 
the difficulty before mentioned, as inherent in the choice 
of the subject, seems to extend its evil influence over the 
structure of the poem. The fact of his materials being so 
scanty obliged Milton to have recourse to episodes ; hence 
the long narratives of Eaphael and Michael. Through 
nearly six entire books, out of the twelve of which the 
poem is composed, the main action is interrupted and in 
suspense ; — a thing which it is difficult to justify upon 
any rules of poetic art. For what is an episode ? It is a 
story within a story ; it is to an epic poem what a paren- 
thesis is to a sentence ; — and just as a parenthesis, unless 
carefully managed, and kept within narrow limits, is likely 
to obscure the meaning of the main sentence ; so an epi- 
sode, if too long, or unskilfully dovetailed into the rest 
of the work, is apt to introduce a certain confusion into 
an epic poem. Let us observe the manner in which the 
father of poetry, — he who, in the words of Horace, — 

" nil molitur inepte ;" 

of whom Pope says,* 

" Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, 
And trace the Muses upward to their spring," 

* Essay on Criticism, I. 



EPIC POETRY. 247 

— let us see how far Homer indulges in episode. The 
use of the episode is twofold : it serves either to make 
known to the reader events antecedent or subsequent in 
time to the action of the piece, or to describe contempo- 
rary matters, which, though connected with, are not 
essential to, and do not help forward, the main action. A 
long narrative of what is past, and a long prophecy of 
what is to come, are therefore both alike episodical : of the 
former we have an example in the second and third books 
of the jdZneid ; of the latter, in the eleventh and 
twelfth books of the Paradise Lost. As an instance of 
the contemporary episode, we may take the story of 
Olinda and Sofronio, in the second canto of the Geru- 
salemme Liber ata. Now Homer, although in the Eiad 
he informs us of many circumstances connected with the 
siege of Troy which had happened before the date when 
the poem commences, seems purposely to avoid communi- 
cating them in a formal episode. He scatters and inter- 
weaves these notices of past events in the progress of the 
main action so naturally, yet with such perfection of art, 
that he gains the same object which is the pretext for 
historical episodes with other poets, but without that 
interruption and suspension of the main design, which, 
however skilfully managed, seem hardly consistent with 
epical perfection. Thus Achilles, in the long speech in 
the ninth book to the envoys, who are entreating him to 
succour the defeated Greeks, introduces, without effort, an 
account of much of the previous history of the great siege. 
So again Diomede ?> in the second book, when dissuading 
the Greeks from embarking and returning home, refers 
naturally to the events which occurred at Aulis before 
the expedition started, in a few lines, which, as it were, pre- 
sent to us the whole theory of the siege in the clearest 
light. Homer, therefore, strictly speaking, avoids in the 
Iliad, the use of the episode altogether. Virgil, on the 
other hand, adopts it ; the second and third books of the 

R 4 



248 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

JEneid are an episodical narrative, in which iEneas re- 
lates to Dido the closing scenes at Troy, and his own 
subsequent adventures in the Mediterranean. Tasso uses 
the episode very sparingly, and prefers the contemporary 
to the historical form. But when we come to the Para- 
dise Lost, we find that nearly half the poem is episodical. 
Several disadvantages hence arise. First of all, the fact 
implies a defect in point of art ; since the action or story 
developed either in a dramatic or an epic poem ought to 
be so important and so complete in itself as not to require 
the introduction of explanatory or decorative statements 
nearly as long as the progressive portions of the poem. 
If the episode be explanatory, it proves that the story is 
not sufficiently clear, simple, and complete, for epic pur- 
poses; if decorative, that it is not important enough to 
engross the reader's attention without the addition of 
extraneous matter. In either case, the art is defective. 
Again, this arrangement is the source of confusion and 
obscurity. A reader not very well acquainted with the 
peculiar structure of the poem, opens the Paradise Lost 
at hazard, and finds himself, to his astonishment, — in a 
work whose subject is the loss of Paradise, — carried back 
to the creation of light, or forward to the building of the 
tower of Babel. 

3. We are now to consider in some detail how Milton has 
treated his subject; how he has dealt with the difficulties 
which seem inherent in the selection. A certain degree 
of amplification — the materials being so scanty — was un- 
avoidable ; — has he managed the amplification success- 
fully ? In some instances, he certainly has ; for example, 
in the account of the temptation of Eve, in the ninth book, 
the logic of which is very ingeniously wrought out by 
supposing the serpent to ascribe his power of speech and 
newly-awakened intelligence to the effects of partaking of 
the fruit of the forbidden tree ; and by putting into his 
mouth various plausible arguments designed to satisfy 



EPIC POETKY. 249 

Eve as to the motives of the Divine prohibition. But in 
other passages we cannot but think that the amplification 
has been most unsuccessful. For example, take the war in 
heaven. In the Apocalypse (eh. xii.) it is mentioned in 
these few words : " And there was a great battle in heaven ; 
Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the 
dragon fought and his angels : and they prevailed not, 
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And 
that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is 
called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world : 
and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown 
down with him." Such, and no more than this, was the 
knowledge imparted in prophetic vision to the inspired 
apostle in Patmos regarding these supernatural events. 
Milton has expanded this brief text marvellously; the 
narrative of the revolt and war in heaven takes up two 
entire books. And strange work indeed he has made of 
it ! The actual material swords and spears, — the invention 
of cannons, cannon-balls, and gunpowder by the rebel 
angels, — the grim puritanical pleasantry which is put in 
the mouth of Satan when first making proof of this notable 
discovery, just such as one might fancy issuing from the 
lips of Cromwell or Ireton on giving orders to batter 
down a cathedral, — the hurling of mountains at one 
another by the adverse hosts, a conceit borrowed from 
Greek mythology and the wars of the Titans against the 
gods, — 

" Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam 
Scilicet, atque Ossse frondosum involvere Olympum ; " 

lastly, the vivid description, exceedingly fine and poetical 
in its way, of the chariot of the Messiah going forth to 
battle, drawn by four cherubic shapes, — all this, though 
fitting and appropriate enough, if the subject were the gods 
of Olympus or of Valhalla, grates discordantly upon our 
feelings when it is presented as a suitable picture of that 



250 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

true and stupendous event which we call the Fall of the 
Angels, and as an expansion of the particulars recorded in 
the sacred text. In truth, Milton is nowhere so solemn 
and impressive as in those passages where he reproduces 
almost verbatim the exact words of Scripture, e. g. in the 
passage in the tenth book, describing the judgment passed 
upon man after his transgression. Where he gives the 
freest play to his invention, the result is least happy. The 
dialogues in heaven, to say nothing of the undisguised 
A jmnis m which disfigures them, are either painful or 
simply absurd, according as one regards them seriously 
or not. Pope, whose discernment nothing escaped, has 
touched this weak point in his Imitations of Horace* 
Hallam himself has admitted that a certain grossness and 
materialism attach to Milton's heaven and heavenly inha- 
bitants, far unlike the pure and ethereal colours with 
which Dante invests the angels and blessed spirits pre- 
sented in his Paracliso. 

Turning now to the personal element in the poem, we 
find, as Johnson shows at length, that as the subject 
\ chosen is beyond the sphere of human experience, so the 
characters described are deficient in human interest. So 
far as this is not the case, it arises from Milton having 
broken through the trammels which the fundamental 
conditions of his subject imposed on him. Of all the 
personages in the Paradise Lost, there is none whose 
proceedings interest us, and even whose sufferings engage 
our sympathies, like those of Satan. But this is because 
he is not represented as the Bible represents him — namely, 
as the type and essential principle of all that is evil and 
hateful. There seems to be a conflict in the mind of 
Milton between the Scriptural type of Satan and the 
Greek conception of Prometheus. The fallen archangel, 
driven from heaven and doomed to everlasting misery by 
superior power, yet with will unconquered and unconquer- 
* (i In quibbles angel and archangel join," &c. 



EPIC POETEY. 251 

able, cannot but recall the image of the mighty Titan chained 
to the rock by the vengeance of Jove, yet unalterably 
defiant and erect in soul. It is clear that the character 
of Satan had greater charms for Milton's imagination, and 
is therefore presented more prominently, and worked out 
with more care, than any other in the poem. Devoted 
himself to the cause of insurrection on earth, he sympa- 
thises against his will with the author of rebellion in 
heaven. Against his will ; for he seems to be well aware 
and to be continually reminding himself that Satan ought 
to be represented as purely evil, yet he constantly places 
language in his mouth which is inconsistent with such a 
conception. For instance : — 

" Yet not for those, 
Isov -what the potent Victor in his rage 
Can else inflict, do I repent or change, 
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind 
And high disdain from sense of injured merit, 
That with the mightiest urged me to contend." 

Is not this much more like Shelley's Prometheus than 
the Satan of the Bible ? It has been often said, and 
it seems true, that the hero or prominent character of 
the Paradise Lost is Satan. Throughout the first three 
books the attention is fixed upon his proceedings. Even 
after Adam and Eve are introduced, which is not till the 
fourth book, the main interest centres upon him ; for 
they are passive — he is active ; they are the subjects of 
plots — he the framer of them ; they, living on without any 
definite aim, are represented as falling from their happy 
state through weakness, and in a sort of helpless pre- 
destined manner (we speak, of course, of Milton's repre- 
sentation only, not of the Fall as it was in itself ) ; while 
he is fixed to one object, fertile in expedients, courageous 
in danger, and, on the whole, successful in his enterprise. 
Clearly, Satan is the hero of the Paradise Lost And, 
apart from the incongruity referred to, the character is 



252 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

drawn in such grand outlines, and presents such a massive 
strength and sublimity, as none but a great poet could 
have portrayed. The following lines describe him, when 
marshalling the hosts of his followers : — 

" He, above the rest 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent, 
Stood like a tower ; his form had not yet lost 
All its original brightness, nor appeared 
Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess 
Of glory obscured ; as when the sun, new risen, 
Looks through the horizontal misty air, 
Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon, 
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
On half the nations, and with fear of change 
Perplexes monarchs. Darken' d so, yet shone 
Above them all th' archangel." 

He consoles himself for his banishment from heaven with 
reflections worthy of a Stoic philosopher : — 

"Farewell, happy fields, 

Where joy for ever dwells ! Hail, horrors, hail, 
Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell, 
Eeceive thy new possessor ; one who brings 
A mind not to be changed by place or time : 
The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 
"What matter where, if I be still the same, 
And what I should be ; all but less than he 
Whom thunder hath made greater ? Here at least 
We shall be free ; the Almighty hath not built 
Here for his envy ; will not drive us hence ; 
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice, 
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell ; 
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." 

In much of the portraiture of Adam, Milton seems to 
be unconsciously describing himself. His manly beauty, 
his imperious claim to absolute rule over the weaker sex, 
the grasp of his intellect, and the delight he feels in its 
exercise, his strength of will, yet susceptibility to the in- 
fluence of female* charms, — all these characteristics, as- 
signed by the poet to Adam, are well known to have in an 



r 



EPIC POETRY. 253 

eminent degree belonged to himself. Eve, on the other 
hand, is represented as a soft, yielding, fascinating being, 
who, with all her attractions, is, in moral and intellectual 
things, rather a hindrance than a help to her nobler 
consort ; — and there are many suppressed taunts and 
thinly-veiled allusions, which, while they illustrate Milton's 
contempt for the sex, and somewhat oriental view of 
woman's relation to man, can scarcely be misunderstood 
as glancing at his own domestic trials. To illustrate what 
has been said, we will quote a few passages. The first is 
one of surpassing beauty : — 

" Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 
God-like erect, with native honour clad, 
In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all ; 
And worthy seem'd ; for in their looks divine 
The image of their glorious Maker shone : 
******* 

Eor contemplation he and valour formed ; 

For softness she, and sweet attractive grace ; 

He for God only, she for God in him : 

His fair large front and eye sublime declared 

Absolute rule ; and hyacinthine locks 

Eound from his parted forelock manly hung 

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad." (Book iv.) 

Eve thus unfolds her conception of the relation in which 
she stands to Adam : — 

" To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorn' d : 
' My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st 
Unargued I obey ; so God ordains ; 
God is thy law, thou mine ; — to know no more 
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.' " (Ibid.) 

Adam, while expressing the same view, owns the invinci- 
bility of woman's charm : — 

" Eor well I understand in the prime end 
Of nature her the inferior, in the mind 
And inward faculties, which most excel ; 
In outward also her resembling less 
His image who made both, and less expressing 



254 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

The character of that dominion given 

O'er other creatures ; yet when I approach 

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems, 

And in herself complete, so well to know 

Her own, that what she wills to do or say 

Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best ; 

All higher knowledge in her presence falls 

Degraded ; wisdom in discourse with her 

Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows." (Book viii.) 

Even in the Fall, his superior intellect asserts itself : — 

" He scrupled not to eat 

Against his better knowledge ; not deceived, 

But fondly overcome with female charm." (Book ix.) 

Is there not, again, a touch of autobiography in the 
reproaches which Adam heaps upon Eve in the following 
lines ? — 

" This mischief had not then befallen, 

And more that shall befall ; innumerable 

Disturbances on earth through female snares; 

And straight conjunction with this sex ; for either 

He never shall find out fit mate, but such 

As some misfortune brings him, or mistake ; 

Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain 

Through her perverseness, but shall see her gained 

By a far worse ;" &c. (Book x.) 

Eve's beautiful submission makes her stern lord relent. 
It is well known that Milton's first wife, in similar sup- 
pliant guise, appeased his resentment, and obtained her 
pardon : — 

" She ended weeping ; and her lowly plight 
Immovable, till peace obtained from fault 
Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought 
Commiseration ; soon his heart relented 
Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight, 
^Nbw at his feet submissive in distress." (Ibid.) 

The seraph Abdiel is one of the grandest of poetic 
creations. Led away, at first, in the ranks of the rebel 
angels, he recoils with horror when he learns the full 



EPIC POETEY. 255 

scope of their revolt, and returns to the courts of 
heaven : — 

" So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found 
Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 
Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal : 
Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind 
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed, 
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained 
Superior, nor of violence feared aught ; 
And with retorted scorn, his back he turned 
On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed." (Book v.) 

By poetical scenery is meant the imaginary framework 
in space in which the poem is set, — the stage with its 
accessories, on which the characters move, and the action 
is performed. In the Paradise Lost, as in the Divina 
Commedia, this is no narrower than the entire compass 
of the heavens and the earth. But there is a remarkable 
difference between them, which, in point of art, operates 
to the disadvantage of the English poet. In the 14th 
century no one doubted the truth of the Ptolemaic system, 
and Dante's astronomy is as stable and self-consistent as 
his theology. The earth is motionless at the centre ; 
round it, fixed in concentric spheres, revolve the " seven 
planets," of which the Moon is the first and the Sun the 
fourth ; enclosing these follow in succession the sphere of 
the fixed stars, that of the empyrean, and that described 
as the primum mobile. The geography of the Inferno, 
an abyss in the form of an inverted cone, extending 
downwards in successive steps to the centre of the earth, 
and that of the Purgatorio, a mountain at the Antipodes, 
rising in the form of a proper cone by similar steps, till 
the summit is reached whence purified souls are admitted 
to the lowest sphere of the Paradiso, are equally logical 
and distinct. But in the 17th century the Copernican 



256 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

system was rapidly gaining the' belief of all intelligent 
men, and Milton, in his poem, wavers between the old 
astronomy and the new. In the first three books the 
Ptolemaic system prevails ; upon any other, Satan's 
expedition in search of the new-created earth becomes 
unintelligible. After struggling through Chaos he lands 
upon the outermost of the spheres that enclose the earth : — 



" Meanwhile, upon the firm opacous 
Of this round world, whose first convex divides 
The luminous inferior orbs, enclosed 
From Chaos and the inroad of darkness old, 
Satan alighted walks." (Book iii.) 

Hither " fly all things transitory and vain ; " hither come 
the u eremites and friars " whom Milton regards with true 
Puritanic aversion, and those who thought to make sure of 
Paradise by putting on the Franciscan or Dominican habit 
on their death-bed : — 

" They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed, 
And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs 
The trepidation talked, and that first moved." 

On his way down from hence to the earth, Satan, still 
in accordance with the Ptolemaic system, passes through 
the fixed stars and visits the sun. But in subsequent parts 
of the poem an astronomy is suggested which revolu- 
tionises the face of the universe, and gives us the uncom- 
fortable feeling that all that has gone before is unreal. The 
stability of the earth is first questioned in the fourth 
book : — 

" Uriel to his charge 

Returned on that bright beam, whose point now raised 

Bore him slope downward to the sun, now fallen 

Beneath the Azores ; whether the prime orb, 

Incredible how swift, had thither rolled 

Diurnal, or this less volubil earth, 

By shorter flight to the east, had left him there." 

In the eighth book, Adam questions Raphael as to the 



EPIC POETRY. 257 

celestial motions, but is doubtfully answered ; upon either 
theory, he is told, the goodness and wisdom of Grod can be 
justified ; yet the archangel's words imply some preference 
for the Copernican system : - 

■ " What if the sun 

Ee centre to the world, and other stars, 
By his attractive virtue and their own 
Incited, dance about him various rounds ? 

******* 
Or save the sun his labour, and that swift 
Nocturnal and diurnal rhomb supposed, 
Invisible else above all stars, the wheel 
Of day and night ; which needs not thy belief, 
If earth, industrious of herself fetch day 
Travelling east, and with her part averse 
From the sun's beam meet night " 

4. It remains to say a few words upon the style, metre, 
and language of the poem. The grandeur, pregnancy, and 
nobleness of the first are indisputable. It is, however, 
often rugged or harsh, owing to the frequency of defects 
in the versification. It is distinguished by the great 
length of the sentences ; the thread of thought winding 
on through many a parenthesis or subordinate clause, now 
involving, now evolving itself, yet always firmly grasped, 
and resulting in grammar as sound as the intellectual 
conception is distinct. This quality of style is perhaps 
attributable to Milton's blindness; he could not write 
down as he composed, nor could an amanuensis be always 
at hand ; he therefore may have acted on the principle that 
one long sentence is more easily remembered than two 
or three short ones. 

A series of admirable papers upon Milton's versifica- 
tion may be found in Johnson's Rambler. To it the 
reader is referred, the subject being not of a kind to 
admit of cursory treatment. 

The language of the poem does not come up to the 

s 



2.58 ENGLISH LITEEATUKE. 

standard of the purest English writers of the period. It 
is difficult to understand how Milton, having the works of 
Bacon, Shakspeare, and Hooker before him, could think 
himself justified in using the strange and barbarous 
Latinisms which disfigure the Paradise Lost. Such terms 
as " procinct," " battalious," " parle," and such usages, or 
rather usurpations, of words, as " frequent " in the sense of 
" crowded," "pontifical " in the sense of " bridge-making," 
ie obvious " for " meeting," " dissipation " for " dispersion," 
and " pretended " for " drawn before " (Lat. prcetentus), 
were never employed by English writers before Milton, 
and have never been employed since. 

Nor does he import Latin words only, but Latin, and 
even Greek, constructions. Examples of Greek idioms 
are, " And knew not eating death," and " miserable of 
happy" (clOXlos sk /juafcapcov). Latin idioms occur fre- 
quently, and sometimes cause obscurity, because, through 
the absence of inflexions in English, the same collocation of 
words which is perfectly clear in Latin is often capable 
of two or three different meanings in English. A few 
examples are subjoined : — "Or hear'st thou rather " {i. e. 
would'st thou rather be addressed as) "pure ethereal 
stream : " — " Of pure, now purer air Meets his approach ; " 
— " So as not either to provoke, or dread New war pro- 
voked " (where it is not clear at first sight whether 
" provoked " should be rendered by "provocatum " or " la- 
cessitos ") ; — " How earnest thou speakable of mute ; " &c. 

After all, it is easy to be hypercritical in these matters. 
The defence, however, of such a minute analysis lies in the 
fact of its being exercised on a work truly great. We 
notice the flaws in a diamond because it is a diamond. 
No one would take the trouble to point out the gramma- 
tical or metrical slips in Blackmore's Creation. It is from 
the conviction that the renown of the Paradise Lost 
is, and deserves to be, imperishable, that critics do not 



DRAMATIC POETEY. 259 

fear to show that the blind, indiscriminate admiration with 
which the poem is often regarded is misplaced. Of the 
father of poetry himself it was said — 

— " Aliquando bonus dormitat Hornerus." 

In a note are given a few passages from the poem, which 
have passed into proverbs, current sayings, or standard 
quotations.* 



Dramatic Poetry : Its Kinds ; Shakspeare, Addison, 
Ben Jonson, Milton. 

Invented by the Greeks, the drama attained in their 
hands a perfection which it has never since surpassed. To 
them we owe the designations of Tragedy and Comedy, 
the definitions of each kind according to its nature and end, 
and the division into acts. The leading characteristics of 
dramatic composition have remained unaltered ever since ; 
but the Greek definition of Tragedy was gradually re- 
stricted, that of Comedy enlarged, so that it became 
necessary to invent other names for intermediate or in- 
ferior kinds. With the Greeks, a tragedy meant "the 
representation of a serious, complete, and important 

* " Awake, arise, or "be for ever fallen." 

" With ruin upon ruin, rout, on rout, 

Confusion worse confounded:" — 

" At whose sight all the stars 

Hide their diminished heads ; " — 

"Not to know me, argues yourselves unknown ;" — 

" Still govern thou my song, 

Urania, and. fit audience find, though few" 

" With a smile that glowed 

Celestial rosy red " — 

" And over them triumphant Death his dart 
Shook, but delayed to strike." 
8 2 



260 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

action," and might involve a transition from calamity to 
prosperity, as well as from prosperity to calamity.* By a 
comedy was meant a representation, tending to excite 
laughter, of mean and ridiculous actions. Thus the Eume- 
nides of iEschylus, the Philoctetes of Sophocles, and the 
Alcestis, Helena, and others of Euripides, though called 
tragedies, do not end tragically in the modern sense, but 
the reverse. But by degrees it came to be considered that 
every tragedy must have a disastrous catastrophe, so that 
a new term — tragi-comedy — which seems to have first 
arisen in Spain, was invented to suit those dramas in 
which, though the main action was serious, the conclusion 
was happy. As Tragedy assumed a narrower meaning, 
Comedy obtained one proportionably more extensive. Of 
this a notable illustration is found in Dante, who named 
his great poem La Commedia, to mark his feeling that it 
was in a style lower than the epic, and yet not a tragedy, 
because it ended happily. In England, the term Comedy 
was used all through the Elizabethan age in a loose sense, 
which would embrace anything between a tragi-comedy 
and a farce. Thus the Merchant of Venice is reckoned 
among the comedies of Shakspeare, though, except for the 
admixture of comic matter in the minor characters, it is, in 
the Greek sense, just as much a tragedy as the Alcestis. In 
the seventeenth century, the term began to be restricted 
to plays in which comic or satirical matter preponderated. 
A shorter and more unpretending species, in one or at 
most two acts, in which any sort of contrivance or trick 
was permissible in order to raise a laugh, so that the action 
were not taken out of the sphere of real life, was invented 
under the name of Farce in the eighteenth century. 

The best and most characteristic of English plays 
belong to what is called the Romantic drama. The 
Classical and the Romantic drama represent two prevalent 
modes of thought, or streams of opinion, which, parting 

* Aristot. Poet. 6. 



DRAMATIC POETRY. 261 

from each other and becoming strongly contrasted soon 
after the revival of letters, have ever since contended for 
the empire of the human mind in Europe. The readers 
of Mr. Euskin's striking books will have learnt a great deal 
about these modes of thought, and will, perhaps, have 
imbibed too unqualified a dislike for the one, and rever- 
ence for the other. Eeferring those who desire a full 
exposition to the pages of that eloquent writer, we must 
be content with saying here, that the Classical drama was 
cast in the GTrseco-Eoman mould, and subjected to the rules 
of construction (the dramatic unities) which the ancient 
dramatists observed ; its authors being generally men who 
were deeply imbued with the classical spirit, to a degree 
which made them recoil with aversion and contempt from 
the spirit and the products of the ages that had intervened 
between themselves and the antiquity which they loved. 
On the other hand, the Eomantic drama, though it bor- 
rowed much of its formal part (e. g. the division into acts, 
the prologue and epilogue, the occasional choruses, &c.) 
from the ancients, was founded upon and grew out of the 
Eomance literature of the middle ages, — its authors being 
generally imbued with the spirit of Christian Europe, such 
as the mingled influences of Christianity and feudalism had 
formed it. National before all, — writing for audiences in 
whom taste and fine intelligence were scantily developed, 
but in whom imagination and feeling were strong, and faith 
habitual, the dramatists of this school were led to reject 
the strict rules of which Athenian culture exacted the 
observance. To gratify the national pride of their hearers, 
they dramatised large portions of their past history, and 
in so doing scrupled not to violate the unity of action. 
They observed, indeed, this rule in their tragedies — at least 
in the best of them — but utterly disregarded the minor 
unities of time and place, because they knew that they 
could trust to the imagination of their hearers to supply 
any shortcomings in the external illusion. In the play 

s 3 



262 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

of Macbeth many years elapse, and the scene is shifted 
from Scotland to England and back again without the 
smallest hesitation. The result is, that Art gains in one 
way and loses in another. We are spared the tedious nar- 
ratives winch are rendered necessary in the classical drama 
by the strict limits of time within which the action is 
bounded. On the other hand, the impression produced, 
being less concentrated, is usually feebler and less deter- 
minate. 

It would be a waste of time to enter here, in that 
cursory way which alone our limits would allow, into any 
critical discussion of the dramatic genius of Shakspeare. 
The greatest modern critics in all countries have under- 
taken the task, — a fact sufficient of itself to dispense us 
from the attempt. Among the numerous treatises, large 
and small — by Coleridge, Hazlitt, Mrs. Jameson, Gruizot, 
Tieck, Schlegel, Ulrici, &c. — each containing much that 
is valuable, we would single out Gruizot's as embodying, in 
the most compact and convenient form, the results of the 
highest criticism on Shakspeare himself, on his time, and 
on his work. 

. [At this point the student is recommended to read 
King Lear, or some other of the great tragedies ; Richard 
III. or Henry V. as a specimen of the Histories, and As 
You Like It, or the Midsummer Night's Dream, as a 
specimen of the Comedies.*] 

Our literature possesses but few dramas of the Classical 
school, and those not of the highest order. The most 
celebrated specimen, perhaps, is Addison's Gato. But 
weak and prosaic lines abound in it, such as 

" Cato, I 've orders to expostulate ; " 
or, 

" Why will you rive my heart with such expressions ? " 

* It is intended to bring out shortly an edition, with notes by the author, 
of the three plays, King Lear, Henry V., and As You Like It. 



DEAMATIC POETEY. 263 

and the scenes between the lovers are stiff and frigid. 
Yet the play is not without fine passages ; as when the 
noble Koman, who has borne unmoved the tidings of the 
death of his son, weeps over the anticipated ruin of his 
country : — 

" 'Tis Eome requires our tears ; 
The mistress of the world, the seat of empire, 
The nurse of heroes, the delight of gods, 
That humbled the proud tyrants of the earth, 
And set the nations free, — Eome is no more! " 

On the whole, Cato's character is finely drawn, and well 
adapted to call forth the powers of a first-rate actor. His 
soliloquy at the end, beginning 

" It must be so ; —Plato, thou reasonest well," &c, 

has been justly praised. 

The plays of Ben Jonson belong in form to the classical 
school, since, as he likes to boast, the unities are preserved 
in them. But his acquaintance with antiquity simply 
made him a pedant ; no man had ever less of the classical 
spirit. 

Milton's Samson Agonistes is constructed upon the 
model of a Greek tragedy. The choral parts are written 
in an irregular metre, which, however, is full of harmony. 
Though not suited for representation before an average 
audience, and though the laboured, compressed diction, 
while it everywhere recalls the great mind of Milton, 
deviates from any objective standard of beautiful expres- 
sion, this play is one of those which continually rise upon 
our judgment. In it the genius of Handel has insepa- 
rably linked itself in our conceptions with the verse of 
Milton. 



s 4 



264 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Heroic Poetry : " The Bruce ; " " The Mirrour for Magistrates ; " 
"The Campaign." 

As the unity of the epic poem is derived from its being 
the evolution of one great, complex action, so the 
unity of the heroic poem proceeds from its being the 
record of all or some of the great actions of an individual 
hero. Like the epic, it requires a serious and dignified 
form of expression ; and consequently, in English, employs 
nearly always, either the heroic couplet, or a stanza of not 
less than seven lines. Heroic poetry has produced no 
works of extraordinary merit in any literature. When 
the hero is living, the registration of his exploits is apt to 
become fulsome ; when dead, tedious. Boileau has perhaps 
succeeded best; the heroic poems which Addison pro- 
duced in honour of Marlborough and William III., in 
hope to emulate the author of the Epitre au Roi, are 
mere rant and fustian in comparison. Our earliest heroic 
poem — The Bruce of Barbour * — is, perhaps, the best ; 
but the short romance metre in which it is written much 
injures its effect. A better specimen of Barbour's style 
cannot be selected than the often-quoted passage on 
Freedom : — 

" A ! fredome is a noble thing ! 
Fredome mayss man to have liking : 
Fredome all solace to man giyis ; 
He livys at ease, that frely lirys ! 
A noble hart may have none ease, 
Na ellys nocht that may him please, 
Gif fredome failyhe ; for fre liking 
Is yharnyt f ower all other thing. 
Na he, that aye has livyt fre, 
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte, 
The angyr, na the wrechyt domej, 
That is couplyt to foul thyrldome.§ 
Bat gif he had assayit it, 

* See p. 58. f Yearned for. j "Wretched doom. § Thraldom. 



HEROIC POETRY. 265 

Then all perquer* lie suld it wyt ; 
And suld think fredome mar to pryss, 
Than all the gold in warld that is. 
Thus contrar thingis ever mar, 
Diseoweryngis of the tothir are.f 
And he that thryll J is, has nocht his : 
All that he has embando^vnyt is 
Till § his lord, quhat eTir he be, 
Yet has he nocht sa mekill fre 
As fre wyl to live, or do 
That at hys hart hym drawis to." 

The Mirrour for Magistrates, or — as it is called in 
the earlier editions — The Falles of Princes, a work of 
the sixteenth century, was modelled by its authors upon 
the plan of Boccaccio's popular work Be Casibus, and 
contains the u tragical histories " of a number of cele- 
brated Englishmen. The metre is the Chaucerian hep- 
tastich, so often before mentioned. But, excepting the 
portions contributed by Sackville (the Induction, and the 
story of Buckingham), this vast compilation possesses 
scarcely more poetical merit than the rhyming chronicles 
of a former age. 

Addison's heroic poem, The Campaign, contains the 
well-known simile of the angel, which called forth the 
admiration and the munificence of Grodolphin. The story 
runs as follows: — In 1704, shortly after the battle of 
Blenheim, Grodolphin, then Lord Treasurer, happening to 
meet Lord Halifax, complained that the great victory had 
not been properly celebrated in verse, and inquired if he 
knew of any poet to whom this important task could be 
safely intrusted. Halifax replied that he did indeed know 
of a gentleman thoroughly competent to discharge this 
duty,, but that the individual he referred to had received 
of late such scanty recognition of his talents and patriotism, 
that he doubted if he would be willing to undertake it. 
Lord Grodolphin replied that Lord Halifax might rest 

* Perfectly. f Meaning " explain their opposites." j Thrall. § To. 



266 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

assured, that whoever might be named should not go 
unrewarded for his trouble. Upon which Halifax named 
Addison. Grodolphin sent a common friend to Addison, 
who immediately undertook to confer immortality on the 
Duke of Marlborough. The poem called The Campaign 
was the result. Grodolphin saw the manuscript when the 
poet had got as far as the once celebrated simile of the 
Angel, which runs thus : — 

" So when an Angel, by divine command, 
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, 
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, 
Calm and serene He drives the furious blast, 
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, 
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." 

Lord Grodolphin, it is said*, was so delighted with this 
not very reverent simile, that he immediately made Addi- 
son a Commissioner of Appeals. But this favourable judg- 
ment of the poem has been reversed by later criticism. 
The Campaign, taken as a whole, is turgid yet feeble, 
pretentious yet dull; it has few of the excellencies, and 
nearly all the faults which heroic verse can have. 



Narrative Poetry: — Romances ; Tales ; Allegories; Romantic 
Poems ; Historical Poems. 

Narrative poetry is less determinate in form than any 
of the preceding kinds. The narrative poem so far 
resembles the epic, that it also is concerned with a parti- 
cular sequence of human actions, and permits of the 
intermixture of dialogue and description. It differs from 
it, in that it does not require either the strict unity or the 
intrinsic greatness of the epic action. In the epic, the 
issue of the action is involved in the fundamental circum- 
stances, and is indicated at the very outset. The first two 

* See the Biographia Britannica. 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 267 

lines of the Iliad contain the germ or theme which is 
expanded and illustrated through the twenty-two books 
which follow. The course of a narrative poem is in 
general more like that of real life ; events occur and are 
described which have no obvious internal relation either 
to each other or to some one ground plan ; — and a con- 
clusion in which the mind reposes, and desires nothing 
beyond, — an essential requirement in the epic, — is not 
to be strictly exacted from the narrative poem. But 
even if the epic unity of design were observed, the 
narrative poem would still be distinguishable from the 
higher kind, either by the inferior greatness of the 
subject, or by the lower quality of the style. An epic 
poem, as was said before, treats of one great complex 
action, in a lofty style, and with fulness of detail. In a 
narrative poem, it will be invariably found that one of 
these elements is wanting. 

It will be convenient to divide narrative poems into 
five classes: 1. Romances, 2. Tales, 3. Allegories, 4. 
Romantic poems, 5. Historical poems. 

1. The Romances, or (rests, in old English, with which 
our MS. repositories abound, were mostly translated or 
imitated from French originals during the thirteenth, 
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. In the former portion 
of this work a general description was given of these re- 
markable poems*, so that it is unnecessary here to enter 
upon any questions connected with their origin or subject- 
matter. We shall now present the reader with an ana- 
lysis of a curious romance, not belonging to one of the 
great cycles, which may serve as a sample of the whole 
class. * It is the romance of Sir Isumbras, and is one of 
those abridged by Ellis. 

Sir Isumbras was rich, virtuous, and happy; but in 
the pride of his heart he was lifted up, and gradually be- 
came forgetful of Grod. An angel appears to him, and 

* See p. 35. 



268 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

denounces punishment. It is like the story of Job : his 
horses and oxen are struck dead ; his castle burnt down ; 
and many of his servants killed. Then, with his wife and 
three sons, he sets out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepul- 
chre. On the way, the two elder children are carried off, 
one by a lion, the other by a leopard. At last they come 
to the " Grreekish Sea ; " a Saracen fleet sails up ; the 
Soudan is enamoured of the wife, and deprives Sir Isum- 
bras of her by a forced sale, the purchase-money being 
counted down upon the knight's red mantle. The lady is 
immediately sent back to the Soudan's dominions in the 
capacity of Queen. Shortly after this the misery of Sir 
Isumbras is completed by the abduction of his only 
remaining son by a unicorn, during a brief interval, in 
which he was vainly pursuing an eagle which had seized 
upon the mantle and the gold. In fervent contrition he 
falls on his knees, and prays to Jesus and the Virgin. He 
obtains work at a smith's forge, and remains in this em- 
ployment seven years, during which he forges for himself 
a suit of armour. A battle between a Christian and a 
Saracen army takes place not far off; Sir Isumbras takes 
part in it, and wins the battle by his valour, killing his old 
acquaintance the Soudan. After his wounds are healed, 
he takes a scrip and pike, and goes on pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land. Here he stays seven years, in constant 
labour, mortification, and penance ; at last *— 

" Beside the burgh of Jerusalem 
He set him bv a well-stream, 

Sore wepand for his sin ; 
And as he sat, about midnight, 
There came an angel fair and bright, 

And brought him bread and wine : 
He said, Palmer, wel thou be ; 
The King of Heaven greeteth wel thee ; 

Forgiven is sin thine ! " 

He wanders away, and at length arrives at a fair castle, 
belonging to a rich Queen ; he begs for and receives food 



NAKRATIYE POETRY. 269 

and lodging. The Queen, after a conversation with him, 
resolves to entertain the pious palmer in the castle. After 
a sojourn here of many months, Sir Isumbras finds one 
day in an eagle's nest his own red mantle with the Soudan's 
gold in it. He bears it to his chamber, and the recol- 
lections it awakens completely overpower him. He be- 
comes so altered that the Queen, in order to ascertain the 
cause, has his room broken open, when the sight of the 
gold explains all, and mutual recognition ensues. Sir 
Isumbras tells his Saracen subjects that they must be 
forthwith converted. They, however, object to such sum- 
mary measures, and rise in rebellion against him and his 
Queen, who stand absolutely alone in the struggle. In the 
thick of the very unequal contest which ensues, three 
knights, mounted respectively on a lion, a leopard, and a 
unicorn, come in opportunely to the rescue, and by their 
aid Sir Isumbras gains a complete victory. These of 
course are his three lost sons. For each he obtains a king- 
dom ; and, all uniting their efforts, they live to see the 
inhabitants of all their kingdoms converted : — 

" They lired and died in good intent, 
Unto heaven their souls -went, 

YVTien that they dead were ; 
Jesu Christ, Heaven's King, 
Give us aye his blessing, 

And shield us from harm ! " 

Such, or similar to this, is the usual form of conclusion 
of all the old romances, even those — as the Seven Sages, 
for instance — of which the moral tone is extremely 
questionable. 

A portion of the great romance of Arthur has been 
given to us in a modern dress by Tennyson. Few readers 
of poetry are unacquainted with his beautiful poem of 
Morte $ Arthur, a modern rendering of the concluding- 
part of the romance bearing that title. The Idyls of the 



270 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

King are renderings of so many particular passages or 
episodes in the same great romance. 

2. Tales form the second class of narrative poems. 
The tale is a poem in which — as a general rule — the 
agencies are natural ; in which the chief interest lies in 
the story itself, and the manner in which it is unfolded, 
not in the style, or language, or peculiar humour of the 
author ; lastly, in which neither is the action on a large 
scale, nor are the chief actors great personages. The 
earliest, and still by far the best, collection of such tales, 
which English literature possesses, is the Canterbury Tales 
of Chaucer. In connection with this work we shall 
endeavour to draw out in some detail the proofs which it 
affords of the solidity and originality of Chaucer's genius. 

In every great writer there is a purely personal element, 
and there is also a social element ; — by the first, which 
is also the highest in kind, he is what he is, and soars 
freely in the empyrean of creative imagination; by the 
second, he is connected with and modified by the society 
in which he moves, the writers whom he follows or 
admires, and even the physical characters of the spot of 
earth where he resides. It is chiefly under these latter 
relations that we propose to consider the genius of 
Chaucer. 

The English society in which he moved was already far 
beyond those comparatively simple relations which we 
ascribe to the society of feudal times. In the eyes of an 
old romance writer, mankind fall naturally and con- 
veniently under these four divisions, — sovereign princes, 
knights, churchmen, and the commonalty. For this 
fourth, or proletarian, class, he entertains a supreme con- 
tempt; he regards them as only fit to hew wood and 
draw water for princes and knights ; and nothing delights 
him more than to paint the ignominious rout and 
promiscuous slaughter of thousands of this base-born 
multitude by the hand of a single favourite knight. 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 271 

There certainly was a time, — before great cities rose to 
wealth and obtained franchises, — when feudal castles 
were scattered like hail over the north of Europe, and 
private war was universal and incessant, — at which this 
picture of society had much truth in it. And, as usually 
happens, the literature which had sprung up under, and 
which was adapted only to such a state of things, continued 
to be produced from the force of habit, after the face of 
society had become greatly altered. Shutting their eyes 
to the progress of things around them, — overlooking, or 
else bewailing as an innovation and a degeneracy, the 
constant accumulation and growing power of wealth 
obtained by industry, and the consequent rise of new 
classes of men into social importance, the romance -writers, 
as a body, continued rather to adapt their translations 
or original effusions to the atmosphere of the baronial 
hall, and to the established order of ideas in the knightly 
understanding, than to seek for sympathy among classes 
which they dreaded while affecting to despise. 

But it is characteristic of genius, first, to have a pro- 
found insight into the real ; then, boldly to face it ; lastly, 
by the art which is its inseparable companion, to repro- 
duce it under appropriate forms. Thus it was with 
Chaucer in the England of the fourteenth century. He 
had no literary models to work by, — in his own language 
at least, — except the antiquated and unreal feudal portraits 
above referred to; but he had sympathies as large as 
the nature of man, a soul that could not endure a dead 
form or a mere conventionality, and an intellect which 
arranged the human beings around him according to their 
intrinsic qualities, — by what they were rather than by 
what they were called. He felt, as Burns did, that 

" The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
The man 's the man for a' that." 

And, accordingly, in that wonderful gallery of portraits, 



272 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, we have the 
existing aspects and classes of English society described 
with a broad and impartial hand. The Knight is indeed 
there, — one figure among many ; nor does Chaucer, like 
Cervantes, present him in a ridiculous light ; for knight- 
hood in the fourteenth century was still a reality, not a 
piece of decayed pageantry, as in the sixteenth ; — but he 
and his order appear as what they actually were, — that is, 
as one element in society amongst many; they do not, 
as in the pages of romance, cast all other orders of laymen 
into the shade. Churchmen again are, on the whole, re- 
presented without partiality and without bitterness ; there 
may be a tinge of Puritanism in the keenness of some of 
the invectives against ecclesiastical personages, but it is 
not more than a tinge ; on the whole, Chaucer may be truly 
said to 

" Nothing extenuate, 
Nor set down aught in malice " — 

and if we have an affected Prioress, a roguish Friar, and a 
hypocritical Pardoner, we have on the other side the Clerk 
of Oxenford, with his solid worth and learning, and the 
well-known character of the good parish priest. But 
besides the knight, the squire, and the ecclesiastical 
persons, a crowd of other characters come upon the 
canvas, and take part in the action. There is the 
Erankelein, the representative of the sturdy, hospitable, 
somewhat indolent, English freeholder, whom, however, 
participation in the political and judicial system intro- 
duced by the energetic Norman has made a better and 
more sterling person than were his lazy Saxon ancestors. 
Then we have the mixed population of cities represented 
by the Merchant, the Man of Law, the Shipman, the 
Doctour of Physike, and the good Wife of Bath, — all 
from the middle classes ; — and by the Haberdasher, the 
Carpenter, the Webbe (weaver), &c, from the lower. The 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 273 

inferior ranks of the rural population are represented by 
the Plowman, the Miller, and the Eeve. 

Viewed in this light, as a picture of contemporary 
society, the Prologue is certainly the most valuable part 
of the Canterbury Tales. And what does this picture 
show us ? Not that distorted image, which the feudal pride 
of the great lords, humoured by the sycophancy of the 
minstrels, had conjured up in the romances, but the real 
living face of English society, such as Christianity and the 
mediaeval church, working now for seven centuries upon 
the various materials submitted to their influence, had 
gradually fashioned it to be. Doubtless it shows many 
evils, — the profanation of sacred callings, — the abuse of 
things originally excellent, — ill-repressed tendencies to 
sloth, luxury, and licentiousness. But it shows also a 
state of things, in which every member of society, even 
the humblest, had recognised rights, and was not sunk 
beneath the dignity of man : we have the high and the 
low, the rich and the poor, but the high are not inordi- 
nately high, and the low are not debased. The cement of 
religion binds together the whole social fabric, causing 
the common sympathies of its members to predominate 
above the grounds of estrangement. 

It might have been expected that not only the Prologue, 
but many of the tales which are put in the mouths of the 
characters there described, would be strongly illustrative 
of English life ; but this is not the case. Chaucer, like 
Shakspeare, borrowed most of his stories from the various 
collections which he found ready to his hand ; and these 
were not of English growth, nor was their scene laid in 
England. When he attempts, in imitation of Boccaccio, 
to invent humorous tales of his own (e. g. the Miller's Tale, 
the Reeve's Tale, &c.) he falls far short of his prototype. 
Like Boccaccio he is exceedingly coarse, but the coarseness 
is not relieved by that keen wit and exquisite beauty of 
style, which, with all that there is to condemn, we cannot 

T 



274 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

help admiring in the Italian writer. Several of Chaucer's 
original tales are both coarse and stupid. In the Somp- 
nour's Tale, it must be confessed, the denouement of the 
story is exceedingly humorous, but the joke is too broad 
for modern taste. The Nonnes Prestes Tale is also very 
diverting. 

Among the writers to whom Chaucer was indebted, 
whether for ideas or materials, there were none to whom 
his obligations were so considerable as to the great Italians 
of the fourteenth century. The Knights Tale is taken 
from Boccaccio, the Gierke s Tale from Petrarch, and the 
story of Hugilin or Ugolino in the Monk's Tale is bor- 
rowed from the well-known passage in Dante. But of 
Chaucer it can be truly said, "nihil quod tetigit, non 
ornavit." The exquisite grace and tenderness with which 
the story of " Patient (xrizzel " is related, are all his own ; 
and the fresh breezy air of the greenwood which we seem 
to inhale in reading parts of the Knights Tale, betokens 
a Teutonic, not an Italian, imagination. 

Lastly, let us endeavour to trace the influence of ex- 
ternal nature upon Chaucer's poetical development. It 
must be borne in mind, — indeed, Chaucer's phraseology 
constantly brings the fact before us, — that to the English 
poet of the fourteenth century nature was far from being 
the pruned, tamed, and civilized phenomenon that she was 
and is to the poets of this and the eighteenth century. 
Chaucer speaks naturally, not figuratively, of the green- 
wood, by which he means what is now called in the 
Australian colonies " the bush," — that is, the wild wood- 
land country, from which the original forests have never 
yet been removed by the hand of man. Even in 
Shakspeare's time, large portions of England still fell 
under this category ; so that he, too, could naturally sing 
of the "greenwood tree," and found no difficulty in 
describing, in As You Like It, what an Australian would 
call bush life, — that is, life on a free earth and under 
a free heaven, — not travelling by turnpike roads, nor 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 275 

haunted by the dread of trespass and its penalties, but 
permitting men to rove at large, and, in Shakspeare's 
phrase, "to fleet the time carelessly as in the golden 
world." This condition of external nature gives a large- 
ness and freshness to the poetry which arises under it; 
the scent of the woods and the song of the birds seem to 
hang about the verse, and " sanctify the numbers." 

But, again, observe the eminent healthiness, the well- 
balanced stability, of Chaucer's mind. He is no sickly 
naturalist ; he does not turn with disgust from town life 
to u babble o'green fields ; " he neither feels nor affects 
such a scorn or disapprobation of man and society as to 
be driven to take refuge in the untarnished loveliness of 
Nature, in order to find fit materials for poetical creations. 
Human society, no less than external nature, is in the 
eyes of Chaucer beautiful and venerable; it, too, comes 
from the hand of Grod ; it, too, supplies fit themes for poetry. 

With Shakspeare and Spenser, but preeminently with 
the former, the case is much the same. In Shakspeare 
there is Done of that morbid revulsion against the crimes 
or littlenesses of society, which drove Byron and Shelley 
into alienation and open revolt against it ; nor, again, is 
there that estrangement from active life and popular 
movement, which makes Wordsworth the poet of the 
fields and mountains, not of man. In the pages of the 
great dramatist, who truly " holds the mirror up to 
nature," not external only but human, we behold 
society in all its varied aspects, by turns repellent and 
attractive, yet in the main as establishing noble and 
dignified relations between man and man. 

The following extracts are taken, — one from the 
Gierke's, the other from the Nonnes Prestes Tale. The 
much-enduring Grrisildes is thus described : — 

l. 

" Among this pore folk there dwelt a man 
Which that was holden porest of hem alle ; 
T 2 



276 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

But heighe God som tyme sende can 
His grace unto a litel oxe stalle. 
Janicula men of that thorp him calle. 
A doughter had he, fair y-nough to sight, 
And Grisildes this yonge mayden hight. 

" But though this mayden tender were of age, 
Yet in the breste of her virginite 
Ther was enclosed ripe and sad corrage ; 
And in gret reverence and charite 
Hir olde pore fader fostered sche ; 
A few scheep, spynnyng, on the feld sche kept, 
Sche nolde not ben ydel til sche slept. 

"And whanne sche com horn sche wolde brynge 
"Wortis and other herbis tymes ofte, 
The which sche shred and seth * for her lyvyng, 
And made hir bed ful hard, and nothing softe. 
And ay sche kept hir fadres lif on loftef, 
With every obeissance and diligence. 
That child may do to fadres reverence." 

The confusion in the poor widow's household, after 
the fox has carried off her cock, Chaunticleere, is thus 
humorously described : — 

2. 

" The sely wydow, and hir doughtres two, 
Herden these hennys crie and maken wo, 
And out at dores starte thay anou, 
And saw the fox toward the wood is gone, 
And bar upon his bak the cok away ; 
They criden, ' Out ! harrow and wayleway ! 
Ha, ha, the fox ! ' and after him thay ran, 
And eek with staves many another man ; 
Ban Colle our dogge, and Talbot, and Garlond, 
And Malkin with a distaff in hir hond ; 
Ban cow and calf, and eek the veray hogges, 
So were they fered for berkyng of the dogges, 
And schowting of the men and wymmen eke, 
Thay ronne that thay thought hir herte breke, 
Thay yelleden as feendes doon in helle ; 
The dokes criden as men wold hem J quelle ; 

* Boiled. 

f Kept on lofte, i. e. sustained, up-^-ed ; from the Anglo-Saxon lyft, air. 

% Kill. 



NARRATIVE POETEY. 277 

The gees for fere flowen over the trees ; 
Out of the hyre came the swarm of bees ; 
So hidous was the noyse, a benedicite ! 
Certes he Jakke Straw, and his meynie *, 
Ne maden schoutes never half so schrille, 
Whan that thay wolden eny Flemyng kille 
As thilke day was maad upon the fox." 

To whatever period of our literature we may turn, a 
multitude of Tales present themselves for review. Grower's 
Confessio Amantis is in great part composed of them, the 
materials being taken from the Gresta Komanorum, or 
from collections of French Fabliaux. Dryden's so-called 
u Fables " are merely translations or modernizations of 
tales by Ovid, Chaucer, and Boccaccio. The Knight's Tale, 
or Palamon and Arcite, and the Nan's Priest's Tale, are 
those which he selected from Chaucer. Falconer's Ship- 
wreck, a popular poem in its day, is hardly worth quoting 
from. The smooth and sounding verse betrays the care- 
ful student of Pope, but there is no force of imagination, 
no depth or lucidity of intellect. Prior's Henry and 
Emma is a re-cast, in heroic metre, of the beautiful 
ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid. The composition and 
versification, though sometimes vigorous, are not on the 
whole more than mediocre. An oft-quoted line occurs 
in it — 

" That air and harmony of shape express, 
Fine by degrees and beautifully less." 

Crabbe's Tales show great narrative and dramatic skill, 
and contain some pathetic passages. Perhaps in all of 
them the moral is pointed with too much pains ; the 
amiable writer had never felt that the true worth of poetry 
transcends any set didactic purpose : 

" ! to what uses shall we put 

The wild wood-flower that simply blows ; 
And is there any moral shut 

Within the bosom of the rose ? " f 

* Band or retinue. t Tennyson's Fairy Princess. 

T 3 



278 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ParnelTs Hermit, a didactic tale, contains the famous 
blunder — real or apparent — which Boswell solemnly 
submitted for Johnson's critical opinion. It occurs in 
the following lines : — 

" To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight, 
To find if books and swains report it right ; 
For yet by swains alone the world he knew, 
"Whose feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew." 

3. Allegories. — According to the etymology of the word, 
allegory means the expressing of one thing by means of 
another. And this may serve as a loose general definition 
of all allegorical writing; for it will embrace, not only 
the personification of human qualities, which is the 
ordinary subject of allegory, but also the application of 
any material designation to a subject to which it is 
properly inapplicable, as when Langlande speaks of the 
castle of Caro, and Bunyan of the city of Destruction, and 
the town of Apostasy. But in addition to the general 
notion of medial representation above stated, the word 
allegory involves also by usage the idea of a narrative. 
It embraces two kinds : 1, allegories proper; and 2, fables. 
The proper allegory has usually a didactic, but sometimes 
a satirical, purpose ; sometimes, again, it blends satire with 
instruction. The author of the famous allegorical satire 
of Reynard the Fox, thus describes at the conclusion 
(we quote from Groethe's version) the didactic intention of 
his satire : — is Let every one quickly turn himself to 
wisdom, shun vice, and honour virtue. This is the sense 
of the poem ; in which the poet has mingled fable and 
truth, that you may be able to discern good from evil, 
and to value wisdom, — that also the buyers of this book 
may from the course of the world receive daily instruction. 
For so are things constituted ; so will they continue ; and 
thus ends our poem of Eeynard's nature and actions. 
May the Lord help us to eternal glory ! Amen." 



NARRATIVE POETRY. '279 

In Langlande's allegorical Visioii of Piers PIovj- 
man, the satirical purpose so preponderates, that we have 
thought it best to class the work under the head of Satire. 
The great majority of the allegorical poems of our early 
writers have didactic aims more or less definite. Chaucer's 
beautiful allegory of the Flower and the Leaf has the 
following symbolical meaning, as Speght in his argument 
expresses it : — (i They which honour the Flower, a thing- 
fading with every blast, are such as look after beauty and 
worldly pleasure ; but they that honour the Leaf, which 
abideth with the root notwithstanding the frosts and 
winter storms, are they which follow virtue and enduring 
qualities, without regard of worldly respects." The fol- 
lowing extract is from the concluding portion of the 
poem : — 

" ' Now, faire Madame,' quoth I, 
' If I durst aske, what is the cause and why, 
That knightes have the ensigne of honour, 
Rather by the leafe than the floure ? ' 

*' ' Soothly, doughter,' quod she, c this is the trouth : — 
For knightes ever should be persevering, 
To seeke honour without feintise or slouth, 
Fro wele to better in all manner thinge ; 
In signe of which, with leaves aye lastinge 
They be rewarded after their degre, 
Whose lusty green may not appaired be, 

" ' But aye keping their beaute fresh and greene ; 
For there nis storme that may hem deface, 
Haile nor snow, winde nor frostes kene ; 
Wherfore they have this property and grace. 
And for the fioure, within a little space 
Wol they be lost, so simple of nature 
They be, that they no grievance may endure.' " 

The allegorical works of Lydgate and Hawes have not 
sufficient merit to require special notice. Some account 
of Dunbar's and Lyndsay's allegories was given in our 

T 4 



280 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

notice of those poets.* We pass on to the great alle- 
gorical masterpiece of the Elizabethan period, — Spenser's 
Faery Queen. In this poem the Grothic or Eomantic 
spirit is even yet more decisively in the ascendant than in 
the plays of Shakspeare, although under the correction 
of the finer feeling for art, which the Eenaissance had 
awakened.' Its great length causes it to be little read at 
the present day ; and yet a true lover of poetry, when 
once he has taken the book up, will find it difficult to lay 
it down. The richness of the imagery, the stately beauty 
of the style, — above all, that nameless and indescribable 
charm, which a work of true genius always bears about 
it, — makes one forget the undeniable prolixity with which 
the design of the poem is worked out. It is dedicated to 
Queen Elizabeth, and in a letter to Sir Walter Ealeigh, 
which is generally prefixed to the work, the author has 
explained his plan : — 

" The general end of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or 
noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline ; which for that I 
conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured 
with an historical fiction, the which the most part of men delight to 
read, rather for variety of matter than for profite of the ensample, 
I chose the Historye of King Arthure, as most fit for the ex- 
cellency of his person, being made famous by many men's former 
workes, and also farthest from the danger of envy, and suspicion 
of present time. In which I have followed all the antique poets 
historicall ; .... by ensample of [whom] I labour to pourtraict 
in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, 
perfected in the twelve private Morall Yertues, as Aristotle hath 
devised : the which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes." 

After saying that he conceives Arthur to have " seen 
in a dreame or vision the Faerie Queen, with whose ex- 
cellent beautie ravished, he, awaking, resolved to seeke 
her out," he proceeds : — 

" In that Faerie Queene I mean Glory in my general intention, 



* See p. 69. 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 281 

but in my particular, I mean the most excellent and glorious 
person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdom in Faerie 
Land. And yet, in some places els, I do otherwise shadow her ; " 
namely, as the huntress Belphcebe. " So, in the person of Prince 
Arthure I set forth Magnificence in particular ; which Vertue, 
for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection 
of all the rest, and containeth in it them all, therefore in the 
whole course I mention the deeds of Arthure applyable to that 
Vertue, which I write of in that booke. But of the twelve other 
Vertues, I make twelve other knights the patrones for the more 
variety of the history." 

Some idea of the nature of the poem, and of the depth 
and richness of Spenser's imagination, may be gained from 
the following brief analysis of the twelfth canto of the 
second book, which contains the Legend of Sir Guy on, or 
of Temperance. 

Sir Gruyon, under the guidance of a Palmer, is voyaging 
towards the Bower of Blisse, the abode of Acrasia (Intem- 
perance). The boat has to pass between the Grulf of 
Grreedinesse and a Magnetic mountain. Escaped from 
these dangers, they coast by the Wandering Islands ; then 
they run the gauntlet between a quicksand and a whirl- 
pool. A " hideous host " of sea-monsters vainly endeavour 
to terrify them. Then they sail near the Bay of the Mer- 
maids, who sing more enchantingly than the Sirens ; but 
Gruyon turns a deaf ear. At last they reach the desired 
land, and proceed to the Bower of Blisse. Eejecting the 
cup of wine tendered by the Dame Excesse, Gruyon presses 
forward through the garden : — 

" Eft soones they heard a most melodious sound, 
Of all that might delight a dainty eare, 
Such as attonce might not on living ground, 
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere : 
Right hard it was for wight that did it heare, 
To read what manner musicke that mote bee ; 
Eor all that pleasing is to living eare 
"Was there consorted in one harmonie ; 
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. 



282 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" The joyous birdes, shrouded in ehearefull shade, 
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet ; 
Th' angelicall soft trembling voices made 
To th' instruments divine respondence meet ; 
The silver-sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmure of the waters' fall ; 
The waters' fall, with difference discreet, 
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." 

Then from the lips of an unseen singer there issues an 
enthralling Epicurean strain : — 

" The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay : 
' Ah ! see, whoso fayre thing dost faine to see, 
In springing fiowre the image of thy day ! 
Ah ! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she 
Doth first peepe forth with bashful modestee, 
That fairer seemes the lesse ye see her may ! 
Lo ! see, soon after how more bold and free 
Her bared bosome she doth broad display ; 
Lo ! see soon after how she fades and falls away ! 

" ' So passeth, in the passing of a day 

Of mortall life, the leafe, the bud, the fiowre ; 
****** 

Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime, 

For soon comes age that will her pride deflowre ; 

Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, 

Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equall crime.' " 

But Gruyon holds on his way unswervingly, and at last 
comes upon Acrasia, whom he seizes and binds, together 
with her lover, a foolish dissipated youth, with the 
strangely modern name of Verdant Then the knight 
breaks down all those pleasant bowers " with vigour pitti- 
lesse," and the Palmer turns back into their natural shape 
a crowd of persons, whom Acrasia had, Circe-like, trans- 
formed into animals. So ends the canto. 

The metre of the Faery Queen was formed by Spenser 
from the Italian ottava rima, or eight-line stanza (said 
to have been invented by Boccaccio), by the addition of a 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 283 

ninth line, two syllables longer than the rest. This, how- 
ever, is not the only distinction, for the internal organisa- 
tion of the two stanzas is widely different. That of 
Spenser closely resembles in this respect the Chaucerian 
heptastich, the essential character of both being fixed by 
the rhyming of the fifth line to the fourth. Strike out 
from the Spenserian stanza the sixth and seventh lines, 
rhyming respectively to the eighth and fifth, and cut off 
the two extra syllables in the last line, and you have at 
once the Chaucerian heptastich. It cannot be denied that 
the Spenserian is a more subtly-constructed stanza than 
the ottava rima ; yet, from its length, it tends to become 
unwieldy, and therefore requires to be managed with the 
utmost skill. The use of it with Spenser seems to have 
become a sort of second nature ; when employed by others, 
even by so considerable a poet as Byron, it does not 
escape from being occasionally wearisome. 

Thomson, in his Castle of Indolence, succeeded remark- 
ably well in imitating the roll of the Spenserian stanza. 
The first canto, which, as Dr. Johnson observes, " opens a 
scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination," dilates 
with evident gusto on the pleasures of a life of indolence. 
Thomson himself is described in the following stanza, 
said to have been written by Lord Lyttleton : 

" A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems, 
Who void of envy, guile, and lust of gain, 
On virtue still, and virtue's pleasing themes, 
Pour'd forth his unpremeditated strain : 
The world forsaking with a calm disdain, 
Here laugh' d he careless in his easy seat ; 
Here quaff d, encircled with the joyous train, 
Oft moralizing sage : his ditty sweet 
He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat." 

In the second canto the haunt of "lazy luxury" is 
broken in upon by the u Knight of Arts and Industry," 
who destroys the castle, and puts to flight its inmates. 



284 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The other form of allegorical composition is the 
fable, or apologue, in which, under the guise of things 
said or done by the inferior animals, tendencies in human 
nature are illustrated, maxims of practical wisdom enforced, 
and the besetting vices and inconsistencies of man ex- 
posed. Fables are short, because they are severally confined 
to the illustration of a single maxim or tendency, and 
would inculcate their moral less strikingly, were the story 
enveloped in many words. In this kind of composition, 
the only considerable metrical work in our literature is 
Gay's Fables. The idea of versifying JEsop was taken 
by Gray from Lafontaine, but executed with far inferior 
power and grace. The following is a fair sample of the 
collection : — 

The Turkey and the Ant. 

" In other men we faults can spy 
And blame the mote that dims their eye, 
Each little speck and blemish find ; 
To our own stronger errors blind. 

A Turkey, tir'd of common food, 
Forsook the barn, and sought the wood ; 
Behind her ran an infant train, 
Collecting here and there a grain, 

' Draw near, my birds ! ' the mother cries, 
' This hill delicious fare supplies ; 
Behold the busy negro race, 
See millions blacken all the place ! 
Fear not ; like me, with freedom eat ; 
An ant is most delightful meat. 
How bless' d, how envy'd, were our life, 
Could we but 'scape the poulterer's knife ! 
But man, curs' d man, on turkeys preys, 
And Christmas shortens all our days. 
Sometimes with oysters we combine, 
Sometimes assist the savoury chine ; 
From the low peasant to the lord, 
The turkey smokes on every board ; 
Sure men for gluttony are curs' d, 
Of the seven deadly sins the worst.' 

An Ant, who climb'd beyond her reach, 
Thus answer'd from the neighbouring beech : 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 285 

' Ere you remark another's sin, 
Bid your own conscience look within : 
Control thy more voracious bill, 
Nor for a breakfast nations kill.' " 

A variety of other fables and apologues in verse He 
scattered over the literary field, some of which are suffi- 
ciently spirited and entertaining. Among the best of 
these are Mrs. Thrale's Three Warnings, and Merrick's 
Chameleon. 

4. By romantic poems, the name assigned to the fourth 
subdivision of narrative poetry, we mean, poems in which 
heroic subjects are epically treated, after the manner of 
the old romances of chivalry, yet in which neither the 
subject nor the form rise to the true dignity of the Epic. 
Such poems are essentially the fruit of modern times and 
modern ideas. Between the period of the Eenaissance, when 
the production of metrical romances ceased, and the close 
of the eighteenth century, the taste of European society 
preferred, both in art and literature, works modelled upon 
the masterpieces of Greek and Koman genius, and re- 
coiled with an aversion, more or less sincere, from all that 
was Gothic or mediaeval. In such a period, a romantic 
poem, had it appeared, would have been crushed by the 
general ridicule, or smothered under the general neglect. 
But, towards the close of the eighteenth century, a re- 
action set in, and the romantic poems of Scott and his 
imitators are one among many of its fruits. 

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the earliest of these pro- 
ductions (1805), exhibits the influence of the old romances 
much more decidedly than those of later date. Expres- 
sions and half lines constantly occur in it, which are 
transferred unaltered from the older compositions ; and the 
vivid and minute description of Branksome Hall, with 
which the poem opens, is exactly in the style of the 
graphic old Trouveres : — 



286 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Nine-and- twenty knights of fame 

Hung their shields in Branksome Hall ; 
Nine-and-twenty squires of name 

Brought them their steeds to bower from stall ; 
Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall 
Waited, duteous, on them all : 
They were all knights of mettle true, 
Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. 
* * * * * 

Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men, 
Waited the beck of the warders ten ; 
Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight, 
Stood saddled in stable day and night, 
Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow, 
And with Jedwood-axe at saddle-bow ; 
A hundred more fed free in stall ; — 
Such was the custom of Branksome Hall." 

The popularity of the Lay naturally induced Scott to 
go on working in the same mine ; Marmion came out in 
1808, and the Lady of the Lake in 1810. Marmion, 
though it has fine passages, is faulty as a poem. The 
introductions to the cantos, addressed to six of his friends, 
are so long, and touch upon such a. variety of topics, that 
the impressions they create interfere with those which the 
story itself is intended to produce ; nor have they much, 
intrinsic merit, if we except that to William Eose, con- 
taining the famous memorial lines on Pitt and Fox. In 
the Lady of the Lake, Scott's poetical style reaches its 
acme. Here the romantic tale culminates ; the utmost 
that can be expected from a kind of poetry far below the 
highest, and from a metre essentially inferior to the heroic, 
is here attained The story is conducted with much art; 
the characters are interesting ; the scenery glorious ; the 
versification far less faulty than in Marmion. 

Byron's Oriental Tales, — the Giaour, the Corsair, the 
Bride of Abydos, &c, — are but imitations, with changed 
scenery and accessories, of Scott's romantic poems, though 
they displaced them for a time in the public favour. But 
the Lady of the Lake will probably outlive the Corsair, 



NARRATIVE POETRY. 287 

because it appeals to wider and more permanent sympa- 
thies. The young, the vehement, the restless, delight in 
the latter, because it reflects and glorifies to their imagi- 
nation the wild disorder of their own spirits ; the aged and. 
the calm find little in it to prize or to commend. But the 
former poem, besides that " hurried frankness of compo- 
sition which pleases soldiers, sailors, and young people of 
bold and active disposition," * has attractions also for the 
firm, even mind of manhood and the pensiveness of age : the 
truth and vividness of its painting, whether of manners or 
of nature, delight the one ; the healthy buoyancy of tone 3 
recalling the days of its youthful vigour, pleasantly in- 
terests the other. 

The following extract is from the well-known Pirate's 
Song, with which the Corsair opens : — 

"O'er the glad -waters of the dark blue sea, 
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, 
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, 
Surrey our empire, and behold our home. 
These are our realms, no limits to their sway — 
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. 
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range 
From toil to rest, and joy in every change. 
Oh, who can tell ? not thou, luxurious slave ! 
Whose soul -would sicken o'er the heaving wave ! 
Not thou, vain lord of -wantonness and ease ! 
Whom slumber soothes not — pleasure cannot please. — 
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, 
And danced in triumph o'er the -waters wide, 
The exulting sense — the pulse's maddening play, 
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless w r ay ; 
That for itself can woo the approaching fight, 
And turn -what some deem danger to delight ; 
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal, 
And where the feebler faint — can only feel : — 
Feel — to the rising bosom's inmost core, 
Its hope awaken and its spirit soar !" 

Moore's Lalla Rookh is also a romantic poem, more 

* Life of Scott : Diary. 



288 r ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

musical and more equably sustained than those of Byron, 
but inferior to his in force, and to Scott's both in force and 
nobleness. One passage we will give ; — it is that in 
which the Peri, whose admission to Paradise depends upon 
her finding a gift for the Deity which will be meet for his 
acceptance, and who has already vainly offered the heart's 
blood of a hero fallen in his country's defence, and the last 
sigh of a maiden who had sacrificed her life for her lover, 
— finds, at last, the. acceptable gift in the tear of peni- 
tence, shed by one who had seemed hardened in crime : 

" But, hark ! the vesper-call to prayer, 

As slow the orb of daylight sets, 
Is rising sweetly on the air 

From Syria's thousand minarets ! 
The boy has started from the bed 
Of flowers, where he had laid his head, 
And down upon the fragrant sod 
Kneels, with his forehead to the South, 
Lisping the eternal name of God 

From purity's own cherub mouth, 
And looking, while his hands and eyes 
Are lifted to the glowing skies, 
Like a stray babe of Paradise, 
Just lighted on that flowery plain, 
And seeking for its home again ! 
Oh, 't was a sight — that Heaven — that child — 
A scene which might have well beguiled 
Ev'n haughty Eblis of a sigh 
For glories lost and peace gone by. 

" And how felt he, the wretched man 
Reclining there — while memory ran 
O'er many a year of guilt and strife, 
Flew o'er the dark field of his life, 
Nor found one sunny resting-place, 
Nor brought him back one branch of grace ! 

' There was a time,' he said, in mild 
Heart-humbled tones, — ' thou blessed child ! 
"When, young and haply pure as thou, 

I looked and prayed like thee, — but now ' 

He hung his head, — each nobler aim 
And hope and feeling, which had slept 
From boyhood's hour, that instant came 

Fresh o'er him, and he wept — he wept ! ' 



DIDACTIC POETEY. 289 

5. The historical poem is a metrical narrative of public 
events, extending over a period more or less prolonged of 
a nation's history. It lies open to the obvious objection 
that, if the intention be merely to communicate facts, they 
can be more easily and clearly described in prose ; if to 
write something poetically beautiful, the want of unity 
of plan, and the restraints which the historical style im- 
poses on the imagination, must be fatal to success. Hence 
the rhyming chronicles of Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, 
and Robert Manning, though interesting to the historian 
of our literature, are of no value to the critic. In Dry- 
den's Annus Mirabilis the defects of this style are less 
apparent, because the narrative is confined to the events 
of one year, and that year (1666) was rendered memorable 
by two great calamities, neither of which was unsusceptible 
of poetic treatment — the great Plague and the Fire of 
London. Yet, after all, the Annus Mirabilis is a dull 
poem ; few readers would now venture upon the intermin- 
able series of its lumbering stanzas. 

Didactic Poetry : The " Hind and Panther ; " Essay on Man ; 
Essay on Criticism ; " Vanity of Human Wishes." 

We have now arrived at the didactic class of poems, 
those, namely, in which it is the express object of the writer 
to inculcate some moral lesson, some religious tenet, or 
some philosophical opinion. Pope's Essay on Man, Dry- 
den's Hind and Panther, and many other well-known 
poems, answer to this description. 

All, or very nearly all, the Anglo-Saxon poetry composed 
subsequently to the introduction of Christianity, bears a 
didactic character. Of Cssdmon the Venerable Bede re- 
marks, that he " never composed an idle verse ; " that is 
to say, his poetical aims were always didactic. A large 
proportion also of the English poetry produced in the 
three centuries following the conquest had direct instruc- 

u 



290 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

tion in view. Most of Chaucer's allegories point to some 
kind of moral ; but the father of our poetry seems to have 
thought that when a writer desired to be purely and 
simply didactic, he should employ prose ; for the only two 
of the Canterbury Tales which answer to that description 
— the Parson's Tale on Penance, and the Tale of Meli- 
bcBUS enforcing the duty of the forgiveness of injuries — are 
in prose. Shakspeare never wrote a didactic poem ; though 
there is no limit to the suggestiveness and thought-en- 
kindling power of his pregnant lines. The same may be 
said of Milton ; yet, as might be expected from the extreme 
earnestness of the man, a subordinate didactic purpose is 
often traceable, not only in the Paradise Lost, but in the 
Comus, the Lycidas, and even the Sonnets. The earliest 
regular didactic poem in the language is the Hind and 
Panther of Dryden, who, it will be remembered, was always 
a good and ready prose writer, who developed his poetical 
talent late, and who, but for his marvellous genius for 
rhyme, which grew constantly with his years, would have 
preferred, one might fancy, prose to verse for a religious 
polemic, as he had preferred it twenty years before for an 
essay on the Drama. However, we must be thankful that 
by indulging his genius in this instance, he has left us a very 
extraordinary specimen of metrical dialectics. 

The Hind and Panther cannot properly be called an 
allegory, for over the greater portion of it there is no 
second meaning in reserve ; the obvious sense is the only 
one. The interlocutors and mute personages are alle- 
gorical, and that is all. Instead of Bossuet and Burnet, 
we have the Hind and the Panther ; but the expressions 
which are put in the mouths of the animals are, for the 
most part, precisely those which might have been put in 
the mouths of the divines. In the two following extracts 
the rival disputants are introduced to the reader : — 

" A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, 
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged ; 



DIDACTIC POETRY. 291 

Without unspotted, innocent within, 

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin : 

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds, 

And Scythian shafts ; was often forced to fly, 

And doomed to death, though fated not to die." 

The Independents, Quakers, Baptists, &c, are next enu- 
merated, under the soubriquets of the Bear, the Hare, the 
Boar, &c. The Lion, whose business, as king of beasts, is 
to keep order in the forest, is, of course, James II. The 
Panther is then introduced : — 

" The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind, 
And fairest creature of the spotted kind ; 
Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away, 
She were too good to be a beast of prey ! 
How can I praise or blame, and not offend, 
Or how divide the frailty from the friend ? 
Her faults and virtues lie so mix'd, that she 
Not wholly stands condemn' d nor wholly free. 
Then, like her injur'd Lion, let me speak ; 
He cannot bend her, and he would not break. 
******* 

If, as our dreaming Platonists report, 

There could be spirits of a middle sort, 

Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell, 

Who just dropped half way down, nor lower fell ; 

So poised, so gently she descends from high, 

It seems a soft dismission from the sky." 

The first two books are taken up with doctrinal discus- 
sions. The third opens with a long desultory conversation, 
partly on politics, partly on pending or recent theological 
controversies (that between Dryden and Stillingneet, for 
instance), partly on church parties and the sincerity of 
conversions. The language put in the mouth of the Hind 
often jars most absurdly with the gentle magnanimous 
nature assigned to her; and in her sallies and rejoinders 
the tone of the coarse unscrupulous party-writer appears 
without the least disguise. This conversation is ended by 
the Panther proposing to relate the tale of the Swallows. 

U 2 



292 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

By these birds the English Catholics are intended, who, 
following the foolish counsels of the Martin (Father Petro, 
James's trusted adviser) are expelled from their nests, and 
perish miserably. A conversation follows on the politics 
of the Church of England. Viewed in the light of sub- 
sequent events, the confidence expressed by the Hind in 
the Panther's immovable adherence to her non-resistance 
principles excites a smile. The Hind next volunteers the 
story of the Pigeons, by whom are meant the Anglican 
clergy. Their ringleader, the Buzzard, is a satirical sketch 
of Burnet, an important actor in the intrigues which 
brought on the Revolution. By following the Buzzard's 
counsel, the Pigeons draw down upon themselves the 
righteous wrath of the farmer (James II.). The poem 
then ends abruptly- 

The most remarkable didactic poem in the language 
is Pope's Essay on Man, written in 1732. Mandeville 
and others had recently impugned the benevolence and 
sanctity of the Deity by pointing out a variety of evils 
and imperfections in the system of things, and asserting 
that these were necessary to the welfare and stability of 
human society. This is the whole argument of the Fable 
of the Bees. Pope in this Essay undertakes to " vindicate 
the ways of Grod to man." And how does he do so ? 
Not — with regard to physical evil — by admitting, indeed, 
with the Apostle, that the " whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together," but connecting its imperfect 
condition with the original sin and fall of moral agents ; 
no i — with regard to moral evil — by tracing it to man's 
abuse of his free will, permitted but not designed by his 
Creator, and to the ceaseless activity of evil spirits ; but, 
by representing evil, moral as well as physical, to be a 
part of God's providential scheme for the government of 
the universe, to be in fact not absolutely and essentially 
evil, but only relatively and incidentally so : — 

" All partial evil, universal good." 



DIDACTIC POETRY. 293 

All this was pointed out, shortly after the appearance of 
the Essay, in a criticism from the pen of Crousaz, a Swiss 
professor. Warburton, in the commentary which he at- 
tached to a new edition of the poem in 1740, replied to 
the strictures of Crousaz, and with much pains and inge- 
nuity endeavoured to give an innocent meaning to all the 
apparently questionable passages. KufThead, in his Life 
of Pope, gives it as his opinion that Warburton completely 
succeeded. Johnson was more clear-sighted. In his Life 
of Pope, after saying that Bolingbroke supplied the poet 
with the principles of the Essay, he adds, " These prin- 
ciples it is not my business to clear from obscurity, dog- 
matism, or falsehood." And again — " The positions which 
he transmitted from Bolingbroke he seems not to have 
understood, and was pleased with an interpretation whicli 
made them orthodox." But what sense but one is it pos- 
sible to attach to such passages as the following ? — 

" If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, 
Why, then, a Borgia or a Catiline ? 
Who knows, but He, whose hand the lightning forms, 
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms, 
Pours fierce ambition in a Ccesar's mind, 
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind ? 
From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs ; 
Account for moral as for natural things ; 
Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit ? 
In both, to reason right is to submit." 

Evidently God is here made not the permitter only, but 
the designer, of moral evil. Again — 

" Submit — in this or any other sphere, 
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear." 

From this dictum, left unguarded as it is, it might be 
inferred that virtue, and the acting in obedience to con- 
science or against it, had nothing to do with man's bless- 
edness. Again — 

" Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall." 
U 3 



294 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Yet we are told, "You are of more value than many 
sparrows." Phenomena in the moral world are here con- 
founded with phenomena in the natural. With Grod there 
is neither small nor great in a material sense ; so far these 
lines convey a just lesson. But how can anything which 
affects the welfare of one human soul — be it that of a 
" hero " or of a pauper — be measured by a standard of 
material greatness ? 

Alive to the weak points in the morality of the Essay, 
Pope wrote the Universal Prayer, as a kind of compen- 
dious exposition of the meaning which he desired to be 
attached to it. In this he says that the Creator, 

" — binding Nature fast in fate, 
Left free the human will." 

How this can be reconciled with the suggestion to — 

" Account for moral as for natural things," 

Warburton never attempted to explain. 

Mr. Carruthers, in his Life of Pope, speaks of this con- 
troversy as if it could have no interest for people of the 
present generation, who read the Essay for the sake of its 
brilliant rhetoric and exquisite descriptions, and do not 
trouble themselves about the reasoning. But whether they 
are conscious of it or not, the moral tone of the poem does 
influence men's minds, as the use which is constantly made 
of certain well-known lines sufficiently demonstrates.* It 
was necessary, therefore, to commence our notice of the 
poem with this brief criticism of its general drift. We 
now proceed to quote one or two passages from this won- 
derful production, which is stamped throughout with an 
intellectual force which was perhaps never exceeded among 
the sons of men.f 

* For instance — 

" In faith and hope mankind may disagree, 
But all the world's concern is charity." 
f The student is recommended to read the whole Essay carefully. 



DIDACTIC POETRY. 295 

" Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
Sees Grod in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; 
His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk or milky way ; 
Yet simple nature to his hope has given, 
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven ; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
Some happier island in the watery waste, 
Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
To be, contents his natural desire — 
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

The optimism, which is the philosophical key-note of the 
Essay — which Leibnitz had rendered fashionable by his 
Theodiccea, and Voltaire was to turn into ridicule in his 
Candide — is thus summed up at the end of the first 
part : — 

" Submit — in this, or any other sphere, 
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear. 
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, 
Or in the natal or the mortal hour. 
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee ; 
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ; 
All discord, harmony not understood ; 
All partial evil, universal good ; 
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
One truth is clear — Whatever is, is right." 

The following analysis of Fame is from the fourth part : — 

" What's fame ? — A fancied life in others' breath, 
A thing beyond us, e'en before our death; 
Just what you hear, you have ; and what's unknown, 
The same (my lord) if Tully's or your own. 
All that we feel of it begins and ends 
In the small circle of our foes or friends ; 
To all beside, as much an empty shade 
As Eugene living, or a Csesar dead ; 
Alike or when or where they shone or shine, 
Or on the Eubicon or on the Rhine. 
u 4 



296 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

A wit 's a feather, and a chief a rod — 
An honest man 's the noblest work of God. 
# * * # # 

All fame is foreign but of true desert, 

Plays round the head, hut comes not to the heart ; 

One self-approving hour whole years outweighs 

Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas ; 

And more true joy Mareellus exiled feels, 

Than Csesar with a senate at his heels." 

The Essay on Criticism must also be classed among 
didactic poems. In it Pope lays down rules, in emulation 
of Horace's famous Epistle cleArte Poetica, of Boileau's Art 
de Poesie, and Eoscommon's Essay on Translated Verse, 
for the guidance, not of the writers, but of the critics, of 
poetry. The depth and sincerity of the admiration with 
which Pope looked up to the ancient masters of song, 
appear from many passages of this brilliant Essay, parti- 
cularly from the peroration of the first part, which, though 
somewhat marred by the anti-climax at the end, is replete 
with a nervous strength — the poet's voice quivering, as 
it were, with suppressed emotion, yet not less clear or 
musical for the weakness — which it is easier to feel than 
to describe. 

" Still green with hays each ancient altar stands, 
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands ; 
Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, 
Destructive war, and all-involving age. 
See, from each clime the learn' d their incense bring ! 
Hear, in all tongues consenting pseans ring ! 
In praise so just let every voice be joined, 
And fill the general chorus of mankind. 
Hail, bards triumphant ! born in happier days, 
Immortal heirs of universal praise ! 
Whose honours with increase of ages grow, 
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow ; 
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, 
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found ! 
may some spark of your celestial fire, 
The last, the meanest, of your sons inspire 



DIDACTIC POETEY. 297 

(That on weak wings from far pursues your flights, 
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes), 
To teach vain wits a science little known, 
To admire superior sense, and doubt their own." 

Johnson's poem on the Vanity of Human Wishes is 
imitated from the tenth Satire of Juvenal. The striking 
passage on Hannibal (expende Hannibalem &c.) is trans- 
ferred to Charles XII. of Sweden. The lines will bear 
quotation : — 

" On what foundations stands the warrior's pride, 

How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide ; 

A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, 

No dangers fright him, and no labours tire ; 

O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 

Unconquer'd lord of pleasure and of pain ; 

No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, 

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field ; 

Behold surrounding kings their powers combine, 

And one capitulate, and one resign ; 

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ; 
' Think nothing gained,' he cries, ' till nought remain ; ' 
' On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,' 
' And all be mine beneath the Polar sky.' 

The march begins in military state, 

And nations on his eye suspended wait ; 

Stern Famine guards the solitary coast, 

And Winter barricades the realms of Frost ; 

He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay ; — 

Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day : 

The vanquish' d hero leaves his broken bands, 

And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 

Condemn' d a needy supplicant to wait, 

While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. 

But did not Chance at length her error mend ? 

Did no subverted empire mark his end ? 

Did rival monarch s give the fatal wound ? 

Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 

His fall was destined to a barren strand, 

A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 

He left the name, at which the world grew pale, 

To point a moral, or adorn a tale." 



298 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



Satirical Poetry — Moral; Personal; Political. 

The didactic poet assumes the office of an educator ; 
the satirist that of a censor morum. The first has the 
same relation to the second which the schools of a country 
have to its courts of justice. One aims at forming virtue, 
and imparting wisdom ; the other at scourging vice, and 
exposing folly. According to its proper theory, satire is 
the Lynch law of a civilised society ; it reaches persons, 
and punishes acts, which the imperfections of legal justice 
would leave unchastised. But could not such persons and 
acts be more efficaciously influenced by warnings of a 
didactic nature ? should they not be left to the philosopher 
and the divine ? The satirist answers, no ; there is a 
class of offenders so case-hardened in vanity and selfish- 
ness as to be proof against all serious admonition. To 
these the dictum applies — 

" Ridiculum acri 

Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res." 

The only way of shaming or deterring them is to turn the 
world's laugh against them — to analyse their conduct, and 
show it up before the public gaze as intrinsically odious 
and contemptible. He does not expect thereby to effect 
any moral improvement in them, but rather to shame and 
deter others who might be preparing to imitate them ; 
just as a good system of police is favourable to morality, 
by diminishing the temptations and the returns to wrong- 
doing. The satirist therefore professes a moral purpose : — 

" Hear this and tremble, you who 'scape the laws ; 
Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave 
Shall walk the world in credit to his grave ; 
To Virtue only and her friends a friend, 
The world beside may murmur or commend." * 

* Pope's Imitations of Horace. 



SATIRICAL POETRY. 299 

Satirical poetry is divisible into three classes — Moral, 
Personal, and Political. By the first is meant that general 
satire on contemporary morals and manners, of which 
Horace, Juvenal, and Pope furnish us with such admirable 
examples. Personal satires are those which are mainly 
directed against individuals, as Dryden's M'Flecknoe, and 
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. - Political satires 
are written in the interest of a party in the State ; the 
most famous instance is Diyderis Absalom and Ahitophel. 

In purely personal satire, the chances are so small in 
favour of the chastisement being administered with pure 
impartiality and justice, that the world rightly attaches 
less value to it than to moral satire. The occasions when 
personal satire becomes really terrible, are those when, in 
the midst of a general moral satire on prevailing vices or 
follies, the acts and character of individuals are introduced 
by way of illustrating the maxims that have just been 
enunciated. The attack then has the appearance of being 
unpremeditated, as if it had been simply suggested by the 
line of reflection into which the poet had fallen ; and its 
effect is proportionally greater. Pope well understood 
this principle, as we shall presently see. 

In the Middle Ages, moral satire generally seized upon 
ecclesiastical abuses. The Land of Cokayne (assigned by 
Warton to the end of the eleventh century, but which 
must be at least a century later), is a satire on the indo- 
lence and gluttony into which the monastic life, when 
relaxed, has occasionally fallen. The Vision of Piers 
Plowman is in great part satirical, directing its attacks 
chiefly against the higher secular clergy. 

The satires of Donne and Hall (the first of which re- 
ceived the honour of modernisation from Pope), are too 
rough and harsh to have much poetical value. For a 
specimen of Hall's powers in this way, we take the follow- 
ing picture of a chaplain in a country house, at the end of 
the sixteenth century : — 



300 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" A gentle squire would gladly entertaine 
Into his house some trencher-chapelaine : 
Some willing man that might instruct his sons, 
And that would stand to good conditions. 
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, 
Whiles his young maister lieth o'er his head. 
Secondly, that he do, on no default, 
Ever presume to sit above the salt. 
Third, that he never change his trencher twice ; 
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies ; 
Sit bare at meales, and one halfe rise and wait ;. 
Last, that he never his young maister beat. 
* # # # * 

All these observed, he could contented be r 
To give five markes and winter liverie." 

Swift's satire, strong and crushing as it is, is so much 
the less effective, because it seems to spring, not from 
moral indignation, but from a misanthropical disgust at 
maokind. Pope excelled in satire, as in everything else 
that he attempted, and must be ranked with the few really 
great satirists of all time. Not that his indignant de- 
nunciations were not frequently prompted by personal 
pique and irritated vanity ; but his fine taste usually 
enabled him to mask his personal feelings under the veil, 
more or less transparent, of a stern and stoical regard for 
virtue. His satirical writings in verse consist of the 
four Moral Essays, in the form of epistles, addressed to 
several persons ; the epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, also 
called the Prologue to the Satires, the. Imitations of 
Horace (six in the heroic couplet, and two in octo-syllabics, 
after the manner of Swift), the Epilogue to the Satires, 
and the Dunciad. Of the Moral Essays, the first, Of the 
Knowledge and Characters of Men, is, till just at the 
close, rather descriptive than satirical. In the second, On 
the Characters of Women, he dashes at once into satire. 
In contrast to those empty-headed, frivolous fair ones, 
whose "true no-meaning puzzles more than wit," he 



SATIKICAL POETRY. 301 

draws the celebrated character of Sarah Duchess of 
Marlborough : — 

" But what are these to great Atossa's mind, 
Scarce once herself, by turns all woman kind ; 
Who, with herself, or others, from her birth 
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth ; 
Shines in exposing knaves and painting fools, 
Yet is whate'er she hates and ridicules. 
No thought advances, but her eddy brain 
Whisks it about, and down it goes again. 
Full sixty years the world has been her trade, 
The wisest fool much time has ever made. 

Offend her, and she knows not to forgive ; 
Oblige her, and she '11 hate you while you live ; 
But die, and she '11 adore you — then the bust 
And temple rise — then fall again to dust. 
Last night her lord was all that 's good and great — 
A knave this morning, and his will a cheat. 
Strange ! by the means defeated of the ends, 
By spirit robb'd of power, by warmth of friends, 
By wealth of followers I without one distress, 
Sick of herself, through very selfishness ! 
Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer, 
Childless with all her children, wants an heir. 
To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, 
Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor." 

In the third essay, on the Use of Riches, after the 
beautiful description of the Man of Ross, who, with " five 
hundred pounds a year," made his beneficent influence 
felt in all the country round, occurs, by way of contrast, 
the picture of the closing scene of Charles II.'s splendid 
favourite, the second Duke of Buckingham : — 

" In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, 
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, 
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, 
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, 
The George and Garter dangling from that bed 
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, 
Great ViUiers lies — alas ! how changed from him, 
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim ! 
Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, 
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ; 



302 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Or just as gay at council, in a ring 

Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king. 

No wit to flatter left of all his store ! 

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more ; 

There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, 

And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends ! " 

Pope perhaps took up this particular character from the 
ambition of rivalling Dryden, who, as we shall see pre- 
sently, wrote a powerful piece of satire upon Buckingham, 
in his Absalom and Ahitophel. The fourth essay satirises 
the various kinds of bad taste, but contains no passages 
particularly suitable for citation. 

In the epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot — one of the brightest, 
wittiest, and most forcible productions of the human 
intellect — after lashing the minor poets of the day, all 
whom — 

" his modest satire bade translate, 
And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate" — 

the poet proceeds to strike at higher game : — 

" Peace to all such ! but were - there one whose fires 
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires : 
Bless' d with each talent, and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease ; 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just .hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 
Alike reserved to blame or to commend, 
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, 
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause ; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise — 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep, if Atticus * were he ? " 

* Addison. 



SATIEICAL POETRY. 303 

It would be easy to multiply extracts from the imitations 
of Horace which follow ; but we must leave the reader to 
study them for himself. Sketches of his own boyhood — 
concise but weighty criticisms on English poets — savage 
attacks on the objects of his hate — Lord Hervey, for 
instance — and noble descriptions, somewhat jarring there- 
with, of the ideal dignity and equity of satire — all this 
and more will be found in these wonderful productions. 
The two which are written in the manner of Swift show a 
marked inferiority to the rest. 

In the Dunciad personal satire predominates, but there 
are passages of more general bearing in which Pope rises 
to the full height of his genius. Such a passage is the 
description of the approach of the empire of Dulness, at 
the end of the poem : — 

"She comes! she comes ! the sable throne behold," &c. 

In personal satire, the main object is the exposure of an 
individual, or individuals. Skelton's satires on Wolsey 
are perhaps the earliest example in our literature. Dry- 
den's M'Flecknoe is an attack on Shadwell, a rival dramatist 
and a Whig, and therefore doubly obnoxious to the Tory 
laureat. Churchill's satires, though much extolled by his 
contemporaries, have little interest for modern readers. 
Gifford's Baviad and Mceviad is a clever satire in two 
parts, in the manner of Pope, on the affected poets and 
poetesses of the Cruscan school, so called after Delia 
Crusca, an Italian, the coryphseus of this namby-pamby 
tribe. The following extract will give an idea of its 
merits : — 

" Lo, Delia Crusca ! In his closet pent, 
He toils to give the crude conception vent ; 
Abortive thoughts, that right and wrong confound, 
Truth sacrificed to letters, sense to sound, 
False glare, incongruous images, combine, 
And noise and nonsense clatter through the line. 



304 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

'Tis done. Her house the generous Piozzi lends, 
And thither summons her blue-stocking friends ; 
The summons her blue-stocking friends obey, 
Lured by the love of poetry — and tea." 

In the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Byron, 
with the reckless petulance of youth, held up to ridicule 
nearly all the poets of his day — Scott, Wordsworth, 
Southey, Coleridge, Moore, &c. In later life, however, he 
made ample amends for several of these attacks, to which 
irritation against the Edinburgh Keview, and the feeling 
of power, rather than any serious dislike of his brother 
poets, had impelled him. The point and spirit of the 
poem falls off after the first two hundred lines, and it be- 
comes at last absolutely tedious. The following extracts 
will serve to illustrate the bold and dashing character of 
this satire. The first regards Southey : — 

" Next see tremendous Thalaba come on, 
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous son ; 
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew 
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew. 
Immortal hero ! all thy foes o'ercome, 
For ever reign — the rival of Tom Thumb ! 
Since startled metre fled before thy face, 
Well wert thou doomed the last of all thy race, 
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence, 
Illustrious conqueror of common sense ! " 

The next is on Wordsworth : — 

" Next comes the dull disciple of thy school, 
That mild apostate from poetic rule, 
The simple Wordsworth — framer of a lay 
As soft as evening in his favourite May. 
Who warns his friend to ' shake off toil and trouble, ' 
And quit his books, for fear of growing double ; ' 
Who, both by precept and example, shows 
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose ; 
Convincing all by demonstration plain, 
Poetic souls delight in prose insane, 
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme, 
Contain the essence of the true sublime. 



SATIRICAL POETRY. 305 

Thus, when he tells the Tale of Betty Foy, 
The idiot mother of her ' idiot boy,' 
A moon-struck silly lad who lost his way, 
And like his bard, confounded night with day, 
So close on each pathetic point he dwells, 
And each adventure so sublimely tells, 
That all who view the ' idiot in his glory,' 
Conceive the bard the hero of the story." 

Political satire castigates, nominally in the interest of 
virtue, but really in the interest of a party, the ambition 
and hypocrisy of the adherents of the opposite faction. 
The two most notable exemplifications in our literature 
are Butler's Hudibras and Dryden's Absalom and Ahito- 
jphel. The figures of Sir Hudibras and Ealpho — the 
one intended to represent the military Puritan, half hypo- 
crite, half enthusiast — 



" who built his faith upon 
The holy text of pike and gun ; " 

the other meant to expose a lower type of Puritan char- 
acter, in which calculating craft, assuming the mask of 
devotion without the reality, made its profit out of the 
enthusiasm of others — are satirical creations which, if not 
equal to Don Quixote and Sancho, can never lose their 
interest in the country which produced the originals. It 
is "worth noting that Hudibras is not only a satire — it is 
also in some sense a burlesque upon romances in the man- 
ner of Cervantes, and even a partial parody on the Faery 
Queen, the headings of Spenser's cantos being imitated in 
the ridiculous quatrains prefixed to the cantos of Hudibras* 
The following extract refers to the clamour in the city 
against the Church of England about the commencement 
of the civil war :— 

" The oyster-women locked their fish up, 

And trudged away to cry No Bishop : 

The mouse-trap men laid save-alls by. 

And 'gainst ev'l counsellors did cry : 

X 



306 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Botchers left old cloaths in the lurch 
And fell to turn and patch the church ; 
Some cry'd the Covenant, instead 
Of pudding-pies and ginger-bread ; 
And some for brooms, old boots and shoes, 
Bawl'd out to purge the Commons-house ; 
Instead of kitchen-stuff, some cry 
A gospel-preaching ministry ; " &c. 

The satirical portraits in Absalom and Ahitophel are 
drawn with a masterly hand. They include the leading 
statesmen and politicians of the Whig party towards the 
end of the reign of Charles IL The occasion of the satire 
was furnished by a plot, matured by the busy brain of 
Shaftesbury, for placing on the throne at the king's death 
his natural son the Duke of Monmouth, to the exclusion 
of his brother the Duke of York. The story of Absalom's 
rebellion supplied a parallel, singularly close in some re- 
spects, of which Dryden availed himself to the utmost. 
Absalom is the Duke of Monmouth, Ahitophel, his crafty 
adviser, is the Earl of Shaftesbury, David stands for 
Charles IL, Zimri for the Duke of Buckingham, &c. &c. 
Some of the characters, though men of mark at the time, 
have ceased to figure in history ; and the satire on them 
interests us but little. But the sketches of Shaftesbury, 
Halifax, Buckingham, and Titus Oates, derive an interest, 
independently of the skill and vigour of the drawing, from 
the historical importance of the persons represented. 
Shaftesbury is thus described : — 

" Of these the false Ahitophel was first, 
A name to all' succeeding ages curst: 
For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; 
Restless, unfixed in principles and place ; 
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; 
A fiery soul, which working out its way 
Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
And o'er informed the tenement of clay. 
* x * * * 

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide ; 



SATIRICAL POETRY. 307 

Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest, 
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ? 
Punish a body which he could not please, 
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ; 
And all to leave what with his toil he won 
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son ? " 

Halifax, known as the "Trimmer," who defeated the 
Exclusion Bill, is the subject of a few laudatory lines : — 

" Jotham, of piercing wit and pregnant thought ; 
Endowed by nature, and by learning taught 
To move assemblies, who but only tried 
The worse awhile, then chose the better side ; 
Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too, 
So much the weight of one brave man can do." 

The following sketch of the Duke of Buckingham may- 
be compared with that by Pope (see p. 301) : — 

" Some of their chiefs were princes of the land : 
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand ; 
A man so various, that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by fits, and nothing long ; 
But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
"Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; 
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
Blest madman, who could eYerj hour employ 
With something new to wish or to enjoy ! 

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art ; 
Nothing went unrewarded but desert. 
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late, 
He had his jest, and they had his estate." 

Gates, the chief witness in the Popish plot of 1680, is 
the object of a long rolling fire of invectives, from which 
we can only extract a few lines : — 

" His memory, miraculously great, 
Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat ; 
Which therefore cannot be accounted lies, 
For human wit could never such devise. 
X 2 



308 ENGLISH LITEEATUKE. 

Some future truths are mingled in his book ; 

But where the witness failed, the prophet spoke ; 

Some things like visionary flight appear : 

The spirit caught him up, — the Lord knows where ; 

And gave him his rabbinical degree, 

Unknown to foreign university." 

Since Dryden we have had no political satirist com- 
parable to Moore. In the Fudge Family in Paris, the 
letters of Mr. Phelim Fudge to his employer, Lord Castle- 
reagh, are an ironical picture of European society from 
the point of view of the Holy Alliance. The Parody on a 
celebrated Letter — that addressed by the Prince Eegent 
to the Duke of York in 1812 — is a piece of cutting satire, 
in which every line has its open or covert sting. 

Among the many shorter poems which fall under the 
description of political satire, none has attained greater 
notoriety than Lilliburlero, or better deserved it than the 
Vicar of Bray. The doggerel stanzas of the former were 
sung all over England about the time of the landing of 
William III., and are said to have contributed much to 
stir up the popular hatred against James. The Vicar of 
Bray is a witty narrative of the changes in political senti- 
ment which a beneficed clergyman, whose fundamental 
principle it is to stick to his benefice, might be supposed to 
undergo between the reigns of Charles II. and George I. 
The first and the last stanzas are subjoined : — 

"In good King Charles's golden days, 

When loyalty no harm meant, 

A zealous high-church man I was, 

And so I got preferment. 
To teach my flock I never missed, 

Kings are by Grod appointed, 

And cursed are they that do resist, 

Or touch the Lord's anointed; 

And this is law," &c. 
* * * * * 

" The illustrious house of Hanover, 
And Protestant succession, . 
To them I do allegiance swear — 
While they can keep possession, 



PASTOEAL POETEY. 309 

For in my faith and loyalty 

I never more will falter, 
And George my lawful King shall be — 
Until the times do alter : 

And this is law, I will maintain, 

Until my dying day, Sir, 
That whatsoever King shall reign, 
I'll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir," 



Pastoral Poetry : — Spenser, Pope, Shenstone. 

Of the pastoral poetry of Greece, such as we have it in 
the exquisite Idyls of Theocritus, our English specimens 
are but a weak and pale reflection. The true pastoral 
brings us to the sloping brow of the hill, while the goats 
are browsing below; and on a rustic seat, opposite a 
statue of Priapus, we see the herdsmen singing or piping, 
yet shunning to try their skill in the mid-day heats, be- 
cause they fear to anger Pan, who then "rests, being 
a-weary, from his hunting." * Even Virgil's Eclogues, 
graceful and musical as they are, possess but a secondary 
excellence ; they are merely imitations of Theocritus, and 
do not body forth the real rural life of Italy. The only 
English poetry which bears the true pastoral stamp is 
that of Burns and other Scottish writers ; — and for this 
reason — that, like the Greek pastoral, it is founded on 
reality; it springs out of the actual life and manner of 
thought of the Scottish peasant. If it is rough-hewn and 
harsh in comparison with its Southern prototype, that is 
but saying that the Scottish peasant, though not despicably 
endowed, is, neither intellectually nor aesthetically, the 
equal of the Greek. 

The chief pastoral poems that we have, are Spenser's 
Shepherd's Kalendar, Drayton's Eclogues, Browne's Bri- 
tannia's Pastorals, and Pope's and Shenstone's Pastorals, 

* Theocritus, Idyl I. 
X 3 



310 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

besides innumerable shorter pieces. It is scarcely worth 
while to make extracts. Browne's so-called pastorals 
ought rather to be classed as descriptive poems, since they 
are destitute of that dramatic character which the true 
pastoral (which is, in fact, a rudimentary drama) should 
always possess. Pope's Pastorals are close imitations of 
Theocritus, with the usual complement of Damons, Stre- 
phons, and Delias. The scenery professes to be in Windsor 
Forest and along the banks of the Thames, but it is, in 
great part, imaginary. Shenstone's Pastoral Ballad has 
some delicately-turned phrases; we subjoin a stanza or 
two : — 

" When forced the fair nymph to forego, 

"What anguish I felt at my heart ! 
Yet I thought — but it might not be so — 

'Twas with pain that she saw me depart. 
She gazed, as I slowly withdrew ; 

My path I could hardly discern ; 
So sweetly she bade me adieu, 

I thought that she bade me return." 

The nymph proves faithless ; and " disappointment " is the 
burden of the concluding part or canto of the poem : — 

" Alas ! from the day that we met, 

"What hope of an end to my woes ? 
When I cannot endure to forget 

The glance that undid my repose. 
Yet time may diminish the pain ; 

The flower, and the shrub, and the tree, 
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain, 

In time may have comfort for me." 



Descriptive Poetry : — " Poly-olbion," " Cooper's Hill," 
" The Seasons." 

This kind of poetry labours under the want of definite 
form and scope; it is accumulative, not organic; and 
consequently is avoided, or but seldom used, by the greater 
masters of the art. The most bulky specimen of descrip- 



DESCRIPTIVE POETRY. 311 

tive verse that we possess is Drayton's Poly-olbion ; the 
most celebrated, Thomson's Seasons. The Poly-olbion 
is a sort of British gazetteer ; it describes the most noted 
spots or towns in every English county, with historical 
illustrations. The poem shows great imaginative as well 
as descriptive power ; so that one wonders at the patient 
industry with which a man, whose gifts qualified him for 
higher things, must have worked out his dull task. The 
diction is simple and strong, and tends to the Saxon side 
of the language, as the following extract shows : — 

" Of Albion's glorious isle, the wonders whilst I write, 
The sundry varying soils, the pleasures infinite, 
Where heat kills not the cold, nor cold expels the heat, 
The calms too mildly small, nor winds too roughly great, 
Nor night doth hinder day, nor day the night doth wrong, 
The summer not too short, the winter not too long — 
What help shall I invoke to aid my muse the while ? 

Thou genius of the place ! this most renowned isle, 
Which livedst long before the all-earth-drowning flood, 
Whilst yet the earth did swarm with her gigantic brood, 
Go thou before me still, thy circling shores about, 
Direct my course so right, as with thy hand to show 
Which way thy forests range, which way thy rivers flow, 
Wise genius, by thy help that so I may descry 
How thy fair mountains stand, and how thy valleys lie." 

Cooper's Hill, by Sir John Denham, has the beautiful 
and often-quoted passage descriptive of the Thames : — 

" Thames — the most loved of all the Ocean's sons 
By his old sire — to his embraces runs, 
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, 
Like mortal life to meet eternity. 
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, 
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold, 
His genius and less guilty wealth to explore, 
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore ; 
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing, 
And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring ; 
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay, 
Like mothers which their infants over-lay, 
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave, 
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave ; 
x 4 



312 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

No unexpected inundations spoil 

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil ; 

But godlike his unwearied bounty flows; 

First loves to do, then loves the good he does ; 

Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, 

But free and common as the sea, or wind, 

When he, to boast or to disperse his stores, 

Full of the tributes of his grateful shores, 

Visits the world, and in his flying towers, 

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours ; 

Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants, 

Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants ; 

So that to us no thing, no place is strange, 

While his fair bosom is the world's exchange. 

might I flow like thee, and make thy stream 

My great example, as it is my theme ! 

Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, 

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 

Of Pope's Windsor Forest, Johnson has remarked, " The 
design of Windsor Forest is evidently taken from Cooper's 
Hill, with some attention to Waller's poem on The Park. 
.... The objection made by Dennis is the want of plan, 
or a regular subordination of parts terminating in the 
principal and original design. There is this want in most 
descriptive poems ; because, as the scenes which they must 
exhibit successively, are all subsisting at the same time, 
the order in which they are shown must by necessity be 
arbitrary, and more is not to be expected from the last 
part than the first." 

Thomson's Seasons, a poem in blank verse, in four books, 
bear some resemblance, though no comparison, to Virgil's 
Georgics. The descriptions of the appearances of nature, 
the habits of animals, and the manners of men, are gener- 
ally given with truthful and vivid delineation. The more 
ambitious nights — if a fine panegyric on Peter the Great 
be excepted — in which he paints great characters of 
ancient or modern story, or philosophizes, or plays the 
moralist — are less successful. Even in describing nature, 
Thomson betrays a signal want of imagination; he saw 



DESCRIPTIVE POETRY. 313 

correctly what was before him — the outward shows of 
things — but never had a glimpse of 

" The light that never was on sea or land, 
The inspiration, and the poet's dream." 

There are passages from which the author might be 
set down as a pantheist; but poets are often inconsistent; 
and, as Pope disclaimed the fatalism which seems to be 
taught by the Essay on Man, so' Thomson might have 
declined to father the pantheism which seems to pervade 
the following lines, if expressed in sober prose : — 

" What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say, 
That in a powerful language, felt, not heard, 
Instructs the fowls of heaven, and through their breast 
These arts of love diffuses ? What but God ? 
Inspiring God ! who, boundless Spirit all, 
And unremitting energy, pervades, 
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole." 

A passage at the end of Spring contains a well-known 
line — 

"Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot, 
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, 
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix 
The generous purpose in the glowing breast." 

The lines on the robin, in Winter, are in Thomson's best 
manner : — 

" The fowls of heaven, 
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around 
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon 
Which Providence assigns them. One alone, 
The red-breast, sacred to the household gods, 
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, 
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves 
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man 
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first 
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights 
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor, 
Eyes all the smiling family askance, 
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is ; 
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs 
Attract his slender feet." 



314 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Lyrical Poetry : — Devotional, Loyal, Patriotic, Amatory, 
Bacchanalian, Martial. 

Lyrical poetry, as its name denotes, implied originally 
that the words were accompanied by lively music. A 
rapid movement, and a corresponding rapidity in the 
verse, are essential to it. It is the glowing utterance of 
minds, not calm and thoughtful, but excited and impas- 
sioned ; it appertains, therefore, to the affective and emo- 
tional side of human nature, and has nothing to do with 
the reasoning and meditative side. Wordsworth, in pur- 
suance of a poetical theory, published in his youth a 
collection of Lyrical Ballads, but they were not lyrical ; 
because there was no passion in them, and much reflec- 
tion. In later life, he wisely changed their designation. 

There are certain main lyrical themes, corresponding 
to the passions and emotions which exercise the most 
agitating sway over the human heart. These are, Devo- 
tion, Loyalty, Patriotism, Love, War, and Revelry. We 
will take each theme separately, and from among the 
innumerable lyrical compositions which adorn our litera- 
ture, select a very few, as a sample of the riches of the 
land. The task of selection is much facilitated by the 
recent publication of a book called The Golden Treasury, 
being a collection of the best songs and lyrics in the 
language, admirably edited by Mr. Palgrave. 

1. Among devotional lyrics there is none nobler than 
Milton's Christmas Ode. Hallam pronounces it to be 
"perhaps the finest ode in the English language." A 
certain ruggedness of diction partially disfigures the later 
stanzas ; but, taking the poem as a whole, the music of 
the numbers is worthy of the stately yet swift march of 
the thought. We must find space for the opening and 
concluding stanzas : — 



LYRICAL POETRY. 315 

" It was the winter wild, 

While the heaven-born child 
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies ; 

Nature in awe to him 

Had doffed her gaudy trim, 
With her great Master so to sympathise : 

It was no season then for her 

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. 

" Only with speeches fair 

She woos the gentle air 
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow ; 

And on her naked shame, 

Pollute with sinful blame, 
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; 

Confounded that her Maker's eyes 

Should look so near upon her foul deformities. 

" But He, her fears to cease, 

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace ; 
She, crown' d with olive green, came softly sliding 

Down through the turning sphere, 

His ready harbinger, 
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing ; 

And, waving wide her myrtle wand, 

She strikes an universal peace through sea and land. 

" No war or battle sound 

Was heard the world around, 
The idle spear and shield were high uphung ; 

The hooked chariot stood 

Unstained with hostile blood ; 
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 

And kings sat still with awful eye, 

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by." 

The discomfiture and flight of the Heathen divinities 
upon the advent of the Kedeemer, and the silence of the 
oracles, are then described, and the ode concludes with 
the following stanzas : — 

" So when the sun in bed, 

Curtained with cloudy red, 
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, 

The nocking shadows pale 

Troop to the infernal jail, 
Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave ; 



316 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

And the yellow-skirted fays 
, Fly after the night steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. 

" But see, the Virgin blest 

Hath laid her babe to rest ; 
Time is, our tedious song should here have ending : 

Heaven's youngest-teemed star 

Hath fixed her polished car, 
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending ; 

And all about the courtly stable 

Bright harnessed angels sit, in order serviceable." 

Crashaw's lyrics of devotion are often beautiful, though 
their effect is injured by the conceits in which he, as a 
writer of the fantastic school, was wont to indulge. Dry- 
den is the author of a fine paraphrase of the hymn Veni 
Creator Spiritus. Addison also wrote some good para- 
phrases. His version of one of the Psalms, " The Lord my 
pasture shall prepare," and the hymn beginning " The 
spacious firmament on high," deserve especial mention. 
Pope's Messiah is a lyrical eclogue in imitation of the 
fourth eclogue of Virgil ; but it is not to be compared in 
merit to the noble and almost inspired address to Pollio. 
In his hymn entitled The Dying Christian to his Soul, 
Pope essayed to rival Dryden and Addison in this field 
also. The effort cannot be pronounced unsuccessful ; yet 
the art and labour employed are too transparent, and the 
ejaculations have a slightly theatrical cast : — 

"Vital spark of heavenly flame, 
Quit, oh ! quit, this mortal frame ; 
Trembling, hoping, lingering, dying, 
the pain, the bliss, of dying ! 
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, 
And let me languish into life. 

" The world recedes, it disappears ; 
Heaven opens on my eyes ; my ears 

"With sounds seraphic ring ; 
Lend, lend your wings ; I mount ; I fly ; 
Grave ; where is thy victory ? 

Death, where is thy sting ? " 



LYRICAL POETEY. 317 

In the present century Byron and Moore have each tried 
their hand at sacred lyrics. The Hebreiv Melodies, of the 
former, and the Sacred Melodies of the latter, contain 
pieces of great lyrical beauty. In the art of wedding 
words to sounds, no English poet ever excelled, or perhaps 
equalled, Moore. This gift is exhibited in the following 
sacred melody, which is but a sample of a great number, 
all equally felicitous in this respect : — 

" Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea; 
Jehovah, hath triumphed ; his people are free. 
Sing ; for the might of the tyrant is broken, 
His chariots, his horsemen, so splendid and brave ; 
How vain was their boasting ! the Lord hath but spoken, 
And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave. 

" Praise to the conqueror, praise to the Lord ! 
His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword. 
"Who shall return to tell Egypt the story 
Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride ? 
The Lord but look'd forth from His pillar of glory, 
And all her brave thousands are whelm' d in the tide." 

2. Of the loyal songs with which our poetry abounds, 
certain classes only can be said to possess real excellence. 
When it is on the winning side, loyalty loses its passion 
and its pathos : its effusions tend to become interested, and 
lie under the suspicion of servility. It is for this reason 
that such poems as Dryden's Astrcea Redux and Addison's 
heroics in honour of William III. fall flat and cold on 
the ear. But when loyalty is struggling, or when it is 
persecuted, it is a noble, because a disinterested, sentiment, 
and it gives birth to noble poems. In our own history 
these conditions have been present on two occasions — 
during the civil war, and after the Eevolution of 1688. 
The Boyalist and the Jacobite songs are therefore the only 
loyal lyrics which need arrest our attention. Of the former 
class we shall quote a portion of the well-known lines 
composed by the gallant Lovelace while in prison : — 



318 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Wlien Love with unconfined wings 

Hovers within my gates, 
And my divine Althea brings 

To whisper at the grates ; 
When I lie tangled in her hair 

And fettered to her eye, 
The birds that wanton in the air 

Know no such liberty. 

# x # * 

" When, linnet-like confined, I 

With shriller throat shall sing 
The sweetness, mercy, majesty, 

And glories of my King ; 
When I shall voice aloud how good 

He is, how great should be, 
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood, 

Know no such liberty. 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

These for an hermitage ; 
If I have freedom in my love, 

And in my soul am free, 
Angels alone, that soar above, 

Enjoy such liberty." 

The Jacobite songs, which are mostly of unknown 
authorship, are full of spirit and fire, and possess that 
melancholy charm which belongs to a great cause vainly 
maintained by high-souled men against an overpowering 
destiny, We select the following specimen : < — 

" To daunton me an' me sae young, 
An' gude King James' auldest son ! 
O that 's the thing that ne'er can be, 
For the man 's unborn that will daunton me ! 

"0 set me ance on Scottish land, 
An' gie me my braid-sword in my hand, 
Wi' my blue bonnet aboon my bree, 
An' show me the man that will daunton me ! 

* From Cromek's Songs of Mthsdale. 



LYRICAL POETRY. 319 

" It 's nae the battle's deadly stoure, 
Nor friends pruived fause, that '11 gar me cower ; 
But the reckless hand o' povertie, 
! that alane can daunton me ! 

" High was I born to kingly gear, 
But a cuif * came in my cap to wear ; 
But wi' my braid-sword I '11 let him see 
He 's nae the man will daunton me." 

The best and most spirited of these Jacobite lyrics are to 
be found in Eitson's Collection of Scottish Songs, or Hogg's 
Jacobite Relics. 

3. That " amour sacre de la patrie," which in all coun- 
tries is a fruitful theme for the Lyric muse, is among 
ourselves by no means homogeneous. We have Scotch 
patriotism, Irish patriotism, and British or imperial pa- 
triotism, and noble lyrics inspired by each. Lastly, as 
there is a poetical justice, so there is a poetical patriotism 
— a feeling which usually goes abroad to seek for its 
objects, and is eloquent upon the wrongs sustained by 
foreign nationalities. Scotland vents her patriotic fer- 
vour in Burns' manly lines, supposed to be addressed by 
Bruce to his army before the battle of Bannockburn. Her 
poets find her ancient triumphs over England more soul- 
inspiring than any of those which her sons have, since the 
Union, assisted her great neighbour to achieve. For 
patriotism is intense in proportion to its local concentra- 
tion ; and zeal for the preservation of the integrity of a 
great empire, though it may produce the same course 
of action, is an affair of the reason rather than of the 
feelings, and therefore less likely to give rise to lyrical 
developments. Two stanzas from the song above men- 
tioned are subjoined : — 

" Wha wad be a traitor knave, 
Wha wad fill a coward's grave, 

* Worthless fellow. 



320 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
Coward ! turn and flee ! 

" Wha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa' ? 
Scotsman ! on wi' me ! " 

Sir Walter Scott was by reason and principle a staunch 
imperialist, and his poem on Waterloo illustrates the 
general or British element in his patriotism. But how 
cold and tame it reads compared with the glowing lines 
which burst from his lips, as his heart broods over the 
rugged charms of his own Caledonia ! — 

" Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land ? 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there be, go mark him well ; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. 
Oh ! Caledonia, stern and wild, 
Meet nurse for a poetic child ! 
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood, 
Land of my sires ! what mortal hand 
Can e'er untie the filial band, 
That knits me to thy rugged strand, 
Still as I view each well-known scene, 
Think what is now, and what hath been, 
Seems as, to me of all bereft, 
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left ; 
And thus I love them better still, 
Even in extremity of ill. 
By Yarrow's streams still let me stray, 
Though none should guide my feeble way ; 



LYEICAL POETRY. 321 

Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break. 
Although it chill my withered cheek ; 
Still lay my head by Teviot stone, 
Though there, forgotten and alone, 
The bard may draw his parting groan." 

Irish patriotism blooms, as might be expected, into 
verse of a mournful, almost of an elegiac, cast. Moore's 
poetry furnishes us with many beautiful specimens, 
among which the following lines, entitled "After the 
Battle," are not the least beautiful : — 

" Night closed upon the conqueror's way, 
And lightnings showed the distant hill, 
Where they who lost that dreadful day 
Stood few and faint, but fearless still. 
The soldier's hope, the patriot's zeal, 
For ever dimmed, for ever crossed ; 
Oh ! who can tell what heroes feel, 
When all but life and honour 's lost ! 

" The last sad hour of freedom's dream, 
And valour's task, moved slowly by, 
While mute they watched, till morning's beam 
Should rise, and give them light to die ! 
There is a world where souls are free, 
Where tyrants taint not nature's bliss ; 
If death that world's bright opening be, 
Oh ! who would live a slave in this? " 

British — if it should not rather be called English — 
patriotism, has produced such poems as G-lover's Hosier's 
Ghost, Cowper's Boadicea, and Campbell's Mariners of 
England. From the Boadicea we extract a portion of 
the Druid's address to the patriot queen of the Iceni : — 

" Rome, for empire far renowned, 
Tramples on a thousand states ; 
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground — 
Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates. 

" Other Romans shall arise, 
Heedless of a soldier's name ; 
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, 
Harmony the path to fame. 
Y 



322 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Then the progeny that springs 
From the forests of our land, 
Armed with thunder, clad with wings, 
Shall a wider world command. 

" Regions Csesar never knew 
Thy posterity shall sway : 
Where his eagles never flew, 
None invincible as they." 

Poetical patriotism inspired Grray's Bard, Byron's Isles 
of Greece, and Shelley's Hellas. In the first-named poem, 
the last of the Welsh bards, standing on a crag that over- 
hangs the pass through which King Edward and his army 
are defiling, invokes ruin on the race and name of the 
oppressor of his country, and at the conclusion of his hymn 
of vengeful despair flings himself into the sea. Byron's 
noble lyric is so well known that we shall not spoil it by 
quotation, but prefer to extract portions of two choruses 
from Shelley's Hellas, in which, with the enthusiasm of 
genius, the poet paints an ideal future for enfranchised 
and regenerate Greece : — 

" Temples and towers, 

Citadels and marts, and they 

Who live and die there, have been ours, 

And may be thine, and must decay ; 

But Greece and her foundations are 

Built below the tide of war, 

Based on the crystalline sea 

Of thought, and its eternity ; 
Her citizens, imperial spirits, 

Rule the present from the past, 
On all this world of men inherits 

Their seal is set." 

But this is not enough ; Greece herself is to live 



"A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 
Erom waves serener far : 
A new Peneus rolls its fountains 
Against the morning star, 



LYRICAL POETRY. 323 

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 

Young Cjclads on a summer deep : 
A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 

Fraught with a later prize ; 
Another Orpheus sings again. 

And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
A new Ulysses leaves once more 
Calypso for his native shore. 

" write no more the tale of Troy, 

If earth Death's scroll must be ! 

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 

Which dawns upon the free ; 
Although a subtler Sphynx renew 
Riddles of death Thebes never knew. 

" Another Athens shall arise, 
And, to remoter time, 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendour of her prime ; 
And leave, if nought so bright may live, 
All earth can take, or heaven can give." 

4. Love songs, or amatory lyrics, may be counted by 
hundreds in all our poetical collections. With the earlier 
poets, Venus is generally found in close alliance with 
Bacchus ; and the sentiment which inspires their strains 
is of a grosser kind than that which the refining mystical 
poets of later times have introduced. Moore in this 
respect resembles the poets of the Elizabethan and Stuart 
periods rather than his own contemporaries. We shall 
give one or two specimens of both styles, beginning with 
Ben Jonson's graceful lines To Celia: — 

" Drink to me only with thine eyes, 
Aud I will pledge with mine ; 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup, 

And I '11 not ask for wine. 
The thirst that from the soul doth rise 

Doth ask a drink divine ; 
But might I of Jove's nectar sup, 
I would not change for thine. 
Y 2 



324 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

: " I sent thee late a rosy wreath, 

Not so much honouring thee 
As giving it a hope that there 

It could not withered be. 
But thou thereon didst only breathe 

And sent'st it back to me ; 
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, 

Not of itself, but thee !" 

Some of Shakspeare's sonnets might well be quoted in 
this connection, particularly that beginning, "Did not 
the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye ? " The exquisite lines 
which follow occur in Measure for Measure : — 

' ; Take, take those lips away, 
That so sweetly were forsworn, 
And those eyes, the break of day, 
Lights that do mislead the morn : 
But my kisses bring again, 

Bring again — 
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, 
Sealed in vain ! " 

Marlowe's "Come, live with me and be my love," and 
Raleigh's reply, " If all the world and love were young," 
are beautiful specimens of what may be called the pastoral 
love song. Waller's " Go, lovely Rose," and Carew's " He 
that loves a rosy cheek," are in all books of extracts ; but 
the latter poet's " Give me more love or more disdain " 
is omitted in the Golden Treasury and several other collec- 
tions ; we shall therefore quote it : — 

" Give me more love, or more disdain; 
The torrid or the frozen zone 
Bring equal ease unto my pain, 

The temperate affords me none ; 
Either extreme of love or hate 
Is sweeter than a calm estate. 

" Give me a storm ; — if it be love, 
Like Danae in that golden shower, 
I swim in pleasure ; if it prove 
Disdain — that torrent will devour 



LYRICAL POETRY. 325 

My vulture hopes, and lie 's possessed 
Of heaven, that's but from hell released ; 
Then crown nay joys or cure my pain ; 
Give me more love or more disdain." 

Milton, Dryden, and Pope, furnish us with nothing to 
quote under this head. When we come to modern times, 
the difficulty lies in the selection. What treasures of 
lyrical force and sweetness are contained in the love songs 
of Burns ! We must give at least one example : — 

" Mary, at thy window be, 
It is the wished, the trysted hour ! 
Those smiles and glances let me see 
That make the miser's treasure poor : 
How blythely wad I bide the stoure, 
A weary slave frae sun to sun, 
Could I the rich reward secure, 
The lovely Mary Morison. 

" Yestreen when to the trembling string 
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', 
To thee my fancy took its wing — 
I sat, but neither heard nor saw : 
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, 
And yon the toast of a' the town, 
I sighed, and said amang them a', 
' Ye are na Mary Morison.' 

" Mary, canst thou wreck his peace 
Wha for thy sake wad gladly dee ? 
Or canst thou break that heart of his, 
Whase only faut is loving thee ? 
If love for love thou wilt na gie, 
At least be pity to me shown ; 
A thought ungentle canna be 
The thought o' Mary Morison." 

In grace and melody, if not in pathos, Moore's love 
songs may be matched with those of Burns, as the follow- 
ing lines exemplify : — 

" Take back the virgin page 
White and unwritten still ; 
Some hand more calm and sage 
That leaf must fill ; 
Y 3 



326 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Thoughts come as pure as light, 
Pure as eyen you require, 
But oh ! each word I write 
Love turns to fire. 

" Yet let me keep the book ; 
Oft shall my heart renew, 
"When on its leaves I look, 

Dear thoughts of you. 
Like you, 'tis fair and bright ; 
Like you, too bright and fair 
To let wild passion write 

One wrong wish there. 

" Haply, when from those eyes 
Far, far away I roam, 
Should calmer thoughts arise 

Towards thee and home, 
Fancy may trace some line 
Worthy those eyes to meet, 
Thoughts that not burn but shine, 
Pure, calm, and sweet." 



Byron's Maid of Athens, Shelley's Epithalamium, and 
Coleridge's Genevieve, we must be content with naming. 

5. Kevelry is a lyrical theme which has been largely 
illustrated by our poets, especially by those of the seven- 
teenth century. We must confine ourselves to a single 
specimen, taken from Cowley : — 

" The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
And drinks, and gapes for drink again. 
The plants suck in the earth, and are 
With constant drinking fresh and fair. 
The sea itself, which one would think 
Should have but little need of drink, 
Drinks ten thousand rivers up 
So fill'd that they o'erfiow the cup. 
The busy sun (and one would guess 
By his drunken fiery face no less) 
Drinks up the sea, and when he 's done, 
The moon and stars drink up the sun. 
They drink and dance by their own light ; 
They drink and revel all the night. 



LYRICAL POETRY. 327 

Nothing in Nature 's sober found, 
But an eternal health goes round. 
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high, 
Fill all the glasses there, for why- 
Should every creature drink but I ? 
Why, men of morals, tell me why ? " 

6. The lyrics of war, whatever may be the reason, are 
not found in great numbers, nor of extraordinary merit, 
in English literature. We might mention Campbell's 
Hohenlinden and Battle of the Baltic, the stirring ballad 
of Count Albert, and the gathering-song Pibroch of 
Donuil Dhu, both by Scott, and Macaulay's ballads of 
Naseby and Ivry, and Lays of Rome. In Dryden's great 
lyric, Alexander's Feast, the "mighty master" of the 
lyre, after successfully preluding upon the themes of love 
and revelry, thus in a bolder strain summons the hero to 
war: — 

" Now strike the golden lyre again : 
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain : 
Break his bands of sleep asunder 
And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. 
Hark, hark ! the horrid sound 
Has raised up his head, 
As awaked from the dead 
And amazed he stares around : 
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, 
See the Furies arise ! . 
See the snakes that they rear 
How they hiss in their hair, 
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes ! 
Behold a ghastly band 
Each a torch in his hand ! 

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, 
And unburied remain 
Inglorious on the plain : 
Give the vengeance due 
To the valiant crew ! 

Behold how they toss their torches on high, 
How they point to the Persian abodes 
And glittering temples of the hostile gods. 
Y 4 



328 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

The princes applaud with a furious joy, 

And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; 

Thais led the way 

To light him to his prey, 

And like another Helen, fired another Troy ! " 

Elegiac Poetry: — " Fidele," "The Castaway," "Lycidas," 
"Adonais." 

English poetry, in sympathy with the sad and lowering- 
skies of our northern climate, is never more powerful and 
pathetic than when heard in the accents of mourning. 
The influences of external nature and of the national tem- 
perament dispose our poets to taciturnity and thought- 
fulness ; and in a world so full of change and death, 
thoughtfulness easily passes into sadness. (Elegiac poems 
may be distinguished as objective or subjective, according 
as their tenor and general aim may be, either simply to 
occupy themselves with the fortunes, character, and acts 
of the departed, or to found a train of musings, having 
reference to self, or at least strongly coloured by the 
writer's personality, upon the fact of bereavement. Among 
those of the former class may be specified — the dirge 
in Cymbeline, Milton's sonnet on Shakspeare, Dryden's 
elegy on Cromwell, Tickell's on Addison, Cowper's lines 
on the Loss of the Royal George, Campbell's Lord Ullin's 
Daughter, the song of Harold in the Lay of the Last 
Minstrel, Cowper's Castaway, and Pope's Elegy on an Un- 
fortunate Lady. Nothing can exceed the simple beauty 
of the song of the brothers over the body of Fidele : * — 

" Fear no more the heat o' the sun, 

Nor the furious winter's rages; 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone and ta'en thy wages : 
Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney sweepers, come to dust. 

" Fear no more the frown o' the great, 
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ; 

* Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. 2. 



ELEGIAC POETEY. 329 

Care no more to clothe and eat : 

To thee the reed is as the oak : 
The sceptre, learning, physic, must 
All follow this, and come to dust, 
" Fear no more the lightning flash, 

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ; 
Fear not slander, censure rash ; 

Thou hast finish'd joy and moan ; 
All lovers young, all lovers must 
> Consign to thee, and come to dust." 

Cowper's lines on the loss of the Eoyal George sound 
like the passing bell : — 

" Toll for the brave ! 
The brave that are no more ! 
All sunk beneath the wave 
Fast by their native shore ! " 

The Castaivay, by the same author, combines what is 
most touching in both kinds of elegy. After a minute 
description of the long struggle for life of the sailor lost 
over-board, the interest of the tale, great in itself, is sud- 
denly rendered tenfold more intense by the application of 
it in the last stanza to the case of the unhappy writer : — 

" No voice divine the storm allayed, 

No bight propitious shone, 
When, far from all effectual aid, 

We perish' d, each alone ; 
But I beneath a rougher sea, 
And whelmed in blacker gulfs than he." 

A similar turn is given to the conclusion of Pope's 
Elegy : — 

" So peaceful rests without a stone, a name, 
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame ! 
How lov'd — how honour'd once, avails thee not, 
To whom related, or by whom begot ; 
Aheap of dust alone remains of thee — 
J Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be ! 

Poets themselves must fall like those they sung; 
Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue; 
E'en he whose soul now melts in mournful lays 
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays. 



330 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, 
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart; 
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er, 
The muse forgot, and thou belov'd no more ! " 

Among elegies of the subjective class may be men- 
tioned the lines written by Kaleigh the night before his 
death, Cowley's elegy on Crashaw, Milton's Lycidas, Gray's 
Elegy in a Country Church-yard, and Shelley's Adonais. 
At the close of his meteor-like career the gallant Kaleigh 
wrote his own epitaph in these few pious and feeling 
lines : — 

" Even such is Time, that takes on trust 
Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
And pays us but with age and dust ; 
"Who in the dark and silent grave, 
When we have wandered all our ways, 
Shuts up the story of our days ! 
But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust ! " 

Lycidas was written by Milton to commemorate the 
death of a college friend, Mr. King, who was drowned 
on the passage from England to Ireland. But Milton's 
grief sets him thinking ; and in this remarkable poem the 
monotone of a deep sorrow is replaced by the linked 
musings of a mind, which, once set in motion by grief, 
pours forth abundantly the treasures of thought and ima- 
gination stored up within it. The following eloquent 
passage contains a line that has almost passed into a 
proverb : — 

" Alas ! what boots it with incessant care 
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse ? 
Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Nesera's hair ? 
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To scorn delights, and live laborious days ; 
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 



ELEGIAC POETRY. 331 

And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 

And slits the thin-spun life. ' But not the praise,' 

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears ; 

' Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 

Nor in the glistering foil 

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies : 

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 

And perfect witness of all-seeing Jove ; 

As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 

So also in Adonais, which is an elegy on Keats, the glo- 
rious imagination of Shelley transports him into regions 
far beyond the reach of the perturbations of a common 
srrief : — 



& 



" The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the land, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ; 
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ; 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are." 

It would be impossible to give an adequate idea of 
Gray's famous elegy by a short extract, but the student is 
recommended to read the entire poem carefully. He will 
find it eminently subjective inspirit; and may compare it 
with Hamlet's moralisings over the skull of Yorick. Both 
may be regarded as products of a mind in which there is a 
morbid preponderance of the contemplative faculty — the 
balance not being duly maintained between the impressions 
from outward objects and the inward operations of the 
intellect.* 

* See Coleridge's remarks on Hamlet. Literary Remains, vol. ii. p. 204. 



322 ENGLISH LITEEATUKE. 



Miscellaneous Poems. 

A large number of poems, chiefly belonging to modern 
times, still remain unnoticed, because they refuse to be 
classified under any of the received and long-established 
designations. This miscellaneous section we propose to 
divide into — 

1. Poems founded on the Passions and Affections. 

2o Poems of Sentiment and Keflection. 

3. Poems of Imagination and Fancy. 

4. Philosophical poetry. 

1. Poems of the first kind are evidently of the lyrical 
order, but they are not to be classed among lyrics, because 
they are deficient in the excitation of thought and rapidity 
of movement which the true lyric must exhibit. They 
occur in great numbers in the works of modern poets, 
and, if a type of excellence in the kind were required, a 
purer one could not easily be found than Wordsworth's 
Michael. Many have seen the unfinished sheepfold in 
Grreen Head Grhyll, referred to in the following lines, which 
Michael, the old Westmoreland "statesman," after the 
news had come that the son so tenderly cherished had 
brought disgrace and peril on his head, had never after- 
wards the heart to complete : — 

" There is a comfort in the strength of love ; 
'Twill make a thing endurable, which else 
Would overset the brain, or break the heart. 
I have conversed with more than one, who well 
Eemember the old man, and what he was 
Years after he had heard this heavy news. 
His bodily frame had been from youth to age 
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks 
He went, and still looked up to sun and cloud, 
And listened to the wind ; and, as before, 
Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep, 
And for the land, his small inheritance. 
And to that hollow dell from time to time 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 333 

Did he repair, to build the fold of which 
His flock had need. 'Tis not forgotten yet 
The pity which was then in every heart 
For the old man — and 'tis believed by all 
That many and many a day he thither went, 
And never lifted up a single stone. 

There, by the sheepfold, sometimes was he seen 
Sitting alone, or with his faithful dog, 
Then old, beside him, lying at his feet. 
The length of full seven years, from time to time, 
He at the building of this sheepfold wrought, 
And left the work unfinished when he died. 
Three years, or little more, did Isabel 
Survive her husband : at her death the estate 
Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand. 
The cottage which was named the Evening Star 
Is gone — the ploughshare has been through the ground 
On which it stood ; great changes have been wrought 
In all the neighbourhood ; — yet the oak is left 
That grew beside their door; and the remains 
Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen, 
Beside the boisterous brook of Green Head Ghyll." 

Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, a poem in which love, pride, 
repentance, and despair seem to be striving together for 
the mastery, and an overcharged heart seeks relief in 
bursts of wild half-frenzied eloquence, must also be placed 
among poems of this class. 

2. Sentiment may be regarded as the synthesis of thought 
and feeling ; and therefore poems of this second class hold 
an intermediate place between those founded on the 
passions and affections, and those in which intellectual 
faculties are, solely or principally, exercised. They are 
very numerous in every period of our literary history. 
Spenser's JRuines of Time is an early and very beautiful 
example. In the midst of a personified presentment of 
Fame, the wish recorded of Alexander is thus strikingly 
related : — 

" But Fame with golden wing aloft doth flie 
Above the reach of ruinous decay, 
And with brave plumes doth beat the azure skie 



334 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Admir'd of base-born men from farre away; 
Then whoso will by vertuous deeds assay 
To mount to heaven, on Pegasus must ride, 
And by sweet poets' verse be glorified. 

" For not to have been dipt in Lethe lake 
Could save the son of Thetis from to die, 
But that blind bard did him immortal make 
With verses, dipped in dew of Castalie ; 
Which made the Eastern Conquerour to crie, 
' fortunate young man, whose vertue found 
So brave a trump, thy noble acts to sound.' " 

Sir John Davies's poem on the Immortality of the Soul 
may be classed either with the present series, or under the 
head of didactic poetry. The poetry of Quarles is partly 
sentimental, partly fantastic. A fine couplet occurs in the 
poem entitled Faith : — 

" Brave minds oppressed, should, in despite of Fate, 
Look greatest, like the sun, in lowest state." t 

The Soul's Errand, said to be by Ealeigh, Milton's 
Penseroso, Dryden's Religio Laid, and Burns' Cotter's 
Saturday Night, are additional examples. Cowper's Lines 
on his Mother's Picture deserve special mention. The 
chief merits of this celebrated poem are — a remarkable 
tenderness and purity of feeling ; the vividness of imagina- 
tion with which past scenes and circumstances are repre- 
sented ; and, occasionally, dignity of thought couched in 
graceful expressions. Its demerits are — the egotistic strain 
which is apt to infect a poet who leads an unemployed and 
retired life, leading him to dwell on circumstances trivial 
or vulgar, equally with those of a truly poetical cast, 
because they interest himself ; and a lamentable inequality 
hence arising — such worthless lines as 

" The biscuit or confectionary plum," 

or 

" I pricked them into paper with a pin," 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 335 

occurring side by side with others most musical and 
suggestive, such as — 

" Children not thine have trod my nursery floor," 

and 

" Time has but half succeeded in his theft — 
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left." 

Childe Harold 9 8 Pilgrimage must also be ranked with 
poems of sentiment and reflection ; for although in form it 
resembles a descriptive poem, that which gives it its pe- 
culiar character is not the description of any external 
scenes, but the minute analysis and exhibition of the 
writer's feelings, reflections, and states of mind. The third 
canto, for instance, is in a great measure a piece of auto- 
biography. Written in 1816, just after he had been 
separated from his wife and child, and, amidst a storm of 
obloquy, had passed into voluntary exile, this canto paints 
the revolt of Byron's tortured spirit against the world's 
opinion, to which, while he scorned it, he was to the last 
a slave. The moral of all the earlier portion is scarcely 
caricatured by the parody in the Rejected Addresses : — 

" Woe 's me ! the brightest wreaths [Joy] ever gave, 
Are but as flowers that decorate a tomb. 
Man's heart, the mournful urn o'er which they wave, 
Is sacred to despair, its pedestal the grave." 

Many lines current in general conversation, but often 
quoted in ignorance of the source whence they come, occur 
in Childe Harold. Few have not heard of those magnifi- 
cent equivalents, by which the skull is described as — 

" The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul! " 

Again, O'Connell's favourite quotation at the Kepeal 
meetings of 1844 is found in the second canto; it is an 
invocation to the modern Greeks : — 

" Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not, 
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow ? " 



336 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

At the ball given in Brussels on the night before the 
advance on Waterloo, we read that 

"all went merry as a marriage bell." 

And it is said of the young French general, Marceau, 
that 

" lie had kept 

The whiteness of his soul, and so men o'er him wept." 

In this dream-land of sentiment, where the dry light of 
the intellect is variously coloured and modified by the play 
of the emotions, the magnificent shadowy ideas of Words- 
worth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality find their 
appropriate home. The leading thought of the poem may 
be gathered from the lines subjoined : — 

" Tlion, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy soul's immensity ; 
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind — 

Mighty Prophet ! Seer blest ! 

On whom those truths do rest, 
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; 
Thou, over whom thy Immortality 
Broods like the Bay, a Master o'er a Slave, 
A Presence which is not to be put by ; 
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven's freedom on thy being's height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ! " 

3. Imagination and fancy are both intellectual faculties, 
and the main function of both is to detect and exhibit the 
resemblances which exist among objects of sense or in- 
telligence. The difference between them, according to the 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 337 

doctrine of Coleridge, may be generally stated thus : that 
whereas fancy exhibits only external resemblances, imagi- 
nation loves to disclose the internal and essential relations 
which bind together things apparently unlike. Drayton's 
Kymphidia is the creation of a fancy the liveliest and 
most inventive, but shows little or no imaginative power. 
On the other hand, Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis, 
Milton's IS Allegro, and the most perfect among Shelley's 
poems, are works of imagination. If we analyse the series ot 
comparisons of which Shelley makes his Skylark the subject, 
we shall find that in every case the likeness indicated lies 
deeper than the surface, and calls into play higher faculties 
than the mere intellectual reproduction of the impressions 
of sense : — 

" Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 

" Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower, 

Soothing her love-laden 

Soul in secret hour 

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 

" Like a glow-worm golden 
In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: 

" Like a rose embowered 
In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves. 

" Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass, 
Eain-awakened flowers, 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass." 
Z 



338 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

In the Cloud, by the same poet, the imagery is partly 
fantastic, partly imaginative, as may be seen in the fol- 
lowing extract : — 

" That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, 

Whom mortals call the moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 
* # * * * 

" I am the daughter of earth and water, 

And the nursling of the sky : 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 

I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain, when with never a stain, 

The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again." 

4. The philosophical is distinguished from the didactic 
poem by the absence of a set moral purpose. In the Essay 
on Man, Pope starts with the design of " vindicating the 
ways of Grod ; " and, whatever may be thought of the mode 
of vindication, this design is adhered to throughout. Nor, 
again, does the philosophical poem, like the narrative or 
epic, embody a definite story, with beginning, middle, and 
end. Its parts may indeed be connected, as in the case of 
the Excursion, by a slight narrative thread ;" but its cha- 
racteristic excellence does not depend upon this, but upon 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 339 

the mode in which the different subjects and personages 
introduced are philosophically handled, and, it may perhaps 
be said, on the soundness of the philosophy itself. How 
far the pursuit of these objects is consistent with the full 
production of that kind of pleasure which it is the business 
of poetry to excite, is a question difficult of decision. 

Wordsworth's Excursion is the longest and most im- 
portant philosophical poem which our literature contains. 
The thread which binds together its parts is a supposed 
excursion among the mountains, taken by the author in 
company with his friend the Wanderer, iu the course of 
which they meet with the Solitary, a soured and despond- 
ent recluse, and with the excellent village pastor, whose 
parochial experiences furnish materials for unlimited 
philosophising. Long conversations, arguments, and com- 
munications of their respective antecedents, pass between 
these four personages, and form the substance of this very 
bulky poem. The Excursion consists of nine books ; but, 
from the nature of the plan, there is evidently no reason 
why it should not contain as many more. It is in fact, 
as has been already stated,* but the second part of a large 
work, of which the third and concluding part was planned 
but never executed; the first part was completed, but 
never published, and the manuscript is understood to be 
in the hands of Wordsworth's literary executory 

* See p. 231. 

f The extract from this unpublished part, inserted in the introduction 
to the Excursion, is so excellent as to induce the earnest hope that Mr. 
Carter will shortly give to the world the entire manuscript. 



z 2 



340 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAPTEE II. 

PROSE WRITINGS. 

A rough general classification and description of the sub- 
ject-matter, with a few critical sketches of particular 
works, or groups of works, is all that we shall attempt in 
the present volume. 

The prose writings of our literature may be arranged 
under the following six heads : — 

1. Works of fiction. 

2. Works of satire, wit, and humour. 

3. Oratory ; (with the connected departments of Journal- 
writing and Pamphleteering.) 

4. History ; (including, besides history proper, biography 
and narrative works of all kinds, as subsidiary branches.) 

5. Theology. 

6. Philosophy; (including, besides philosophy proper, 
essays and political treatises, and all works of thought and 
theory, e.g. aesthetics and literary criticism.) 

Prose Fiction. 

By a work of fiction a narrative work is always under- 
stood. A fiction which describes, not imaginary actions, 
but an imaginary state of things, such as More's Utopia, 
must be considered as a work of thought and theory, and 
will fall under our sixth head. Works of fiction, then, or 
fictitious narratives, are of two kinds — those in which the 
agencies are natural, and those in which they are not. In 
the latter case they are called romances, in the former, 



FROSE FICTION. 341 

stories of common life. Komances are either mock or 
serious ; — and mock romances may be either satirical, 
humorous, or comic. Stories of common life are divided 
into tales of adventure and novels ; the novel being in its 
purest form the correlative in prose of the epic poem in 
poetry, and, like it, treating of " one great complex action, 
in a lofty style, and with fullness of detail. 1 '* Whatever 
be its form, the novel must possess unity of plan, and is 
thereby distinguishable from the mere tale of adventure 
or travel, in which this unity is not required. Novels, 
again, may either refer to the past — in which case they 
are called historical novels — or to the present. If the 
latter, they admit of a further subdivision, according to 
the social level at which the leading characters move, into 
novels of high life — of middle life — and of low life. 
Further, there is a cross division applicable to the whole 
class of novels, into those of the artistic and those of the 
didactic kind. The following table exhibits the above 
classification of works of fiction at a glance : — 







Fictitious Narratives. 

| 




1. Romances. 

1 


1 
Stories of common life. 

1 


1. 


1 1 
Mock. Serious. 

Satirical. 
Swift. 
Humorous. 
Comic. 4. N 


1 1 

2. Novels 5^ ist + ic 3 - T * leS <>* adven- 
(Didactic ture. Dejoe. 


2. 
3. 


1 1 
ovels of the past. 
(Historical) Novels of the present. 
Sir W. Scott. | 




5. Novels of high 

life. 

Richardson, 

Mrs. Gore. 

1. The word : 


1 1 
6. Novels of middle 7. Novels of 
life. low life. 
Fielding, Smollett. 
Miss Austen. 

romance is here used in a sense which 

* See p. 267. 
Z 3 



342 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

implies, that in works so called, some preternatural or 
supernatural agency is instrumental in working out the 
plot. We have not many serious romances in English ; 
the Grand Cyras, and other delectable productions of 
Scudery and Calprenede, were read, admired, and trans- 
lated amongst us in their day, but do not appear to have 
been imitated, at least in prose. St Leon, by Grodwin, 
Frankenstein or The Ghost-seer, by his daughter, Mrs. 
Shelley, and the Old English Baron, by Clara Eeeve, are 
among the principal performances in this kind. The 
Phantom Ship, by Captain Marryatt, is a remarkable and 
beautiful story, founded on the grand old legend of the 
Flying Dutchman. One of the Waverley novels, the 
Monastery, in which the apparitions of the White Lady 
of Avenel have an important influence on the develope- 
ment of the story, falls accordingly within the scope of our 
definition. The most notable examples of the mock romance 
are the Travels of Lemuel Gulliver. The comic variety is 
exemplified in the Voyages of Brobdingnag and Lilliput, the 
satirical in the Voyages to the Houyhnhnms and Laputa. 

2. The distinction of novels into artistic and didactic is 
founded on the different aims which entered into their 
composition. The artistic novel aims at the beautiful 
representation of things and persons, such as they really 
appear in nature, or may be conceived capable of be- 
coming ; its purpose is aesthetic, and not moral. Goethe's 
Wilhelm Meister is a celebrated instance. The didactic 
novel has some special moral lesson in view, which the 
progress and issue of the story are intended to enforce. 
G-odwin's Caleb Williams, Bulwer's Paul Clifford and 
Eugene Aram, and the whole class of religious novels, 
are instances in point. 

3. Among tales of adventure, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe 
bears the palm. Among the many imitations, more or 
less close, to which that celebrated production has given 
rise, may be particularised Miss Porter's Narrative of 



PROSE FICTION. 343 

Sir Edward Seaward, and Captain Marryatt's delightful 
story of Masterman Ready. The Travels of Anastasius, 
by Hope, enjoyed a great reputation fifty years ago. 

4. Novels of the past are not all necessarily historical 
novels, since they may relate to supposed events in the 
private life of former ages, whereas by the historical novel 
is commonly understood a work of which the interest 
principally turns on the introduction of some personages 
or events of historic fame. Thus, Bulwer's Last Days of 
Pompeii, in which none of the characters are historical, 
can only, if at all, claim the title of a historical novel in 
virtue of the historic catastrophe — the great eruption of 
Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii in ashes in the reign of 
Vespasian. 

In the historical novel, Sir Walter Scott, the inventor 
of the style, remains unapproached. Out of twenty- 
seven novels (omitting short tales), which compose the 
Waverley series, twenty are historical. The most remote 
period to which the author has ascended is the eleventh 
century, the events described in Count Robert of Paris 
being supposed to occur during the first crusade. This, 
however, is one of the latest and least interesting of 
the series. The Betrothed, the Talisman, and Ivanhoe, 
refer to the twelfth century; the grand romantic per- 
sonage of Kichard Cceur de Lion figuring prominently 
in both the novels last named. The thirteenth century 
seems to have had no attractions for our author; and 
even in the fourteenth — a period so memorable both 
in English and Scottish history — he has given us only 
the Fair Maid of Perth and Castle Dangerous; the 
striking story of Rienzi was left for Bulwer to appropriate, 
and work up into an historical fiction of the highest order. 
In the fifteenth century, the reign of Louis XI. is admirably 
illustrated in Quentin Durward; in which the Duke of 
Burgundy, Charles the Bold, is presented to us in the 
plenitude of his power and prosperity ; while in Anne of 

Z 4 



344 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Geierstein we see that power humbled to the dust by the 
arms of the sturdy Switzers. The Monastery, with its 
sequel, the Abbot, exhibits the distracted state of Scotland 
during the religious wars of the sixteenth century.. In 
Kenihuorth, which belongs to the same period, the scene 
is laid in England, and the interest centres in Dudley, 
Earl of Leicester, and the unfortunate Amy Kobsart. 
The seventeenth century must have possessed a peculiar 
interest for Scott ; for the plots of no less than five of his 
novels are laid in it, and some of these are among the 
most successful efforts of his genius. The learned fool 
James I. is introduced in the Fortunes of Nigel; the 
Legend of Montrose brings before us the exploits of that 
gallant but ill-starred chief, and creates for us the 
admirable portrait of the veteran soldier trained in the 
Thirty Years' War under Grustavus Adolphus, the incom- 
parable Major Dalgetty ; — Cromwell appears in Woodstock; 
Peveril of the Peak illustrates the startling contrasts 
which existed between the gay immoral society gathered 
round the court of Charles II., and the terrible puritan 
element beneath the surface, crushed down, but still 
formidable ; — lastly, in Old Mortality, deemed by many 
to be the author's most perfect production, the plot is 
connected with the insurrection of the Scottish Covenanters 
in 1679, and brings before us the haughty form of Claver- 
house. Four novels belong to the eighteenth century — 
Rob Roy, the Heart of Mid-Lothian, Waverley, and Red- 
gauntlet. In the first, named, by the happy thought of 
Constable, Scott's publisher, after a noted Highland free- 
booter, who nourished in the early part of the century, the 
chief historic interest lies in the admirable art with which 
the story brings out the contrast then existing between 
the civilised law-respecting Lowlands, and the confused 
turbulent state of things a few miles off across the 
Highland border, where black-mail was levied and clannish 
custom was nearly supreme. In the Heart of Mid- 



PROSE FICTION. 345 

Lothian the incidents of the Porteus riots at Edinburgh 
in 1736 are interwoven with the plot, and Caroline, the 
generous and strong-minded queen of George II., is 
associated with her humble petitioner, Jeanie Deans. 
Waverley is a tale of the rising of the clans under the 
young Pretender in 1745; and Redgauntlet refers to a 
contemplated rising of the English Jacobites a few years 
later, which the unmanageable obstinacy of the Chevalier 
stifled in the birth. 

5. In the novel of hio'h life, the chief actors belong to 
the " upper ten thousand " of society. Eichardson, who 
was himself the son of a joiner, delighted to paint the 
manners of this class, to which in all his novels the prin- 
cipal personages belong. As we read them, we associate 
with Sir Charles Grandisons and Lady G.s, with Harriet 
Byrons, Lovelaces, and Count Geronimos ; an English 
squire or a foreign nobleman is the meanest company we 
frequent. Yet Richardson has high excellences ; his cha- 
racters are firmly yet delicately drawn ; there is vigorous 
orginal outline, filled in and bodied out by a number of 
fine, almost imperceptible touches ; the diction, though 
often copious to a fault, never sinks to mere verbiage ; the 
story is always naturally and probably evolved ; lastly, the 
author never obtrudes his own personality, but leaves his 
work before you, to impress you or not, according to its 
and your own intrinsic qualities. The clever novels of Mrs. 
Gore have a yet more limited range than those of Eichard- 
son ; they paint the present generation, and therein only the 
inhabitants of May Fair, and frequenters of Rotten Eow. 

6. The immense majority of English novels portray 
the manners and characters which are common in the 
middle ranks of society. Not to speak of works by living 
authors — of the Pickivich Papers or Vanity Fair — all 
Fielding's novels,* Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and 

* For an admirable account of them and their author, see Thackeray's 
Lectures on the English Humorists. 



346 ENGLISH LITEKATUEE. 

Amelia, and those of Miss Austen and Miss Edgeworth, 
belong to this class. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane 
Austen, is the perfect type of a novel of common life ; the 
story so concisely and dramatically told, the language so 
simple, the shades and half-shades of human character so 
clearly presented, and the operation of various motives so 
delicately traced — attest this gifted woman to have been 
the perfect mistress of her art. Under this head are also 
included such of Scott's novels as have no historical ele- 
ment , e. g. Guy Mannering, the Antiquary, the Bride 
of Lammermoor, &c. 

7. The best specimens in our literature of the novel of 
low life are by living authors. Which of us has not turned 
vagrant with little Nell, and dived into the recesses of the 
Seven Dials with Fagin and the Artful Dodger ? * Paul 
Clifford also, by Bulwer, belongs to this class ; and, in the 
last century, Smollett's Roderick Random and several of 
Defoe's novels, which treat principally of uproarious scenes 
and rough characters, from which the sentimental Eichard- 
son would have recoiled in disgust. 



2. Works of Satire, Wit, and Humour. 

Among the best performances of this kind which our 
literature contains, are the Tale of a Tub and the Battle 
of the Books by Swift, Sterne's Tristram Shandy and 
Sentimental Journey, and the Anti-Jacobin by Canning, 
Ellis, and Frere. 

An explanation has already been given of the title of 
the first among the works above named.f Swift tells us 
that it was composed when "his invention was at the 
height, and his reading fresh in his head." The " Epistle 
dedicatory to Prince Posterity " is a fine piece of ironv 

* Characters in the Old Curiosity Shop and Oliver Twist. 
f See p. 180. 



WORKS OF SATIRE, WIT, AXD HUMOUR. 347 

Dryden is maliciously mentioned in it as a poet, who, the 
prince would be surprised to hear, had written many vol- 
umes, and made a noise among his contemporaries. The 
tale itself, such as it is, relates the adventures of the 
brothers, Peter, Martin,* and Jack ; and with the sections 
in which it is carried on, other sections alternate, in which 
the abuses of learning are exposed. The three brothers, as 
the names imply, are allegorical, and represent the Catholic, 
Lutheran, and Calvinistic systems respectively. The 
book was eao-erlv read and discussed : — a thino- little to be 
wondered at, when a satire expressed with inconceivable 
force and humour, and upon which all the resources of 
an unquestionably great genius had been expended, was 
directed against the religious belief and practice of the 
whole Catholic, and a large portion of the Protestant, 
world. But though admired, it was widely condemned. 
Smalridge, a divine of that age, when taxed with the 
authorship by Sacheverell, answered with indignation, 
" Xot all that you and I have in the world, nor all that we 
ever shall have, should hire me to write the Tale of a 
Tub.'' Swift therefore found it necessary to prefix an 
"Apology" to the edition of 1709, in which he declared 
that his meaning had been misinterpreted in many places, 
and that his real object throughout was to serve pure re- 
ligion and morality. But if this was his object, he chose 
a singular way of promoting it. Martin's proceedings, 
which are represented as rational and right, are disposed 
of in a page and a half; the rest of the work consists of 
satirical descriptions of Peter's knavery and mendacity, 
and of Jack's fanatical extravagance. Of course the 

* That by "Martin" Swift originally meant Lntheranism, and not the 
Church of England, seems clear from the passage in the Fragment ap- 
pended to the work, where he speaks of dropping " the former IMartin " and 
substituting for him " Lady Bess's Institution." by which the Church of 
England could alone be meant. But it is likely that he was not un- 
willing, at a later period, to have it supposed that i; Martin " stood for the 
Church of England. 



348 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

general effect of the book is that of a satirical attack on 
Christianity itself. Voltaire's strong approval, and recom- 
mendation to his followers to peruse it, are conclusive as 
to the real relation in which it stands to religion. What 
chiefly delighted him was the vigour of the attacks on 
Peter. These, though highly humorous, are coarse, and 
sometimes revolting, particularly when it is considered 
that they came from a clergyman. They show plainly 
enough that Swift was at the time a cynic and a mate- 
rialist, and utterly scouted all religion in his secret heart. 

In the Battle of the Books, which, as already mentioned, 
is Swift's contribution to the controversy on the respective 
merits of classical and modern literature, the ancient and 
modern books in the Eoyal Library are represented as 
engaging each other in a pitched battle. The moderns 
are defeated with great slaughter ; but Milton and 
Shakspeare, indignant at the depredators of their great 
masters, take no part in the fray. A change of style 
occurs about the middle of the satire, and thence to the 
end the Homeric manner is parodied very amusingly. 

The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner, established in 
1797 by Canning and his friends, might be classed, 
according to its form, under the head of Journalism ; but 
since its professed object was to chastise by ridicule, and 
so render harmless, the Jacobinical root-and-branch as- 
pirations of that portion of the press which had adopted 
the new French principles, it is properly classed among 
works of satire and wit. In performing this self-assigned 
function, the conductors of the Anti-Jacobin did not mince 
matters ; their language was as violent and abusive as 
that of their opponents, their accusations as sweeping, and 
their scrupulosity of assertion not much superior. But 
the vigour and wit with which they employed the weapons 
of sarcasm, irony, and parody, gave them a decided 
advantage, and have gained for the Anti-Jacobin a per- 
manent place in our libraries. Parody was used by 



TTOEKS OF SATIRE, WIT, AND HUMOUR. 349 

Canning in the sonnet upon Mrs. Brownrigg, imitated 
from Southey's lines on Marten the regicide, and in the 
famous ballad of the Needy Knife-Grinder, suggested 
by Southey's sapphics. The prose portion of the paper 
contained each week three paragraphs headed "Lies," 
"Misrepresentations,'' "Mistakes," in which the corres- 
ponding delinquencies of the Jacobin press during the 
preceding week were examined and castigated. In the 
second volume Canning introduced the prose drama of 
The Rovers, or The Double Arrangement, a capital 
burlesque on Kotzebue's plays, which were then the rage 
in England. The virtuous sentiments and loose practice 
of Kotzebue's heroes and heroines are amusingly exhibited 
in Matilda and her lover. Matilda's " A thought strikes 
me ; let us swear eternal friendship," is exquisite in its 
absurdity. 

Before speaking of works of Humour, it is necessary, 
in order not to confound them with works of Satire, to 
define the term, humour, with some strictness. Humour is a 
peculiar way of regarding persons, actions, and things, in 
conformity to the peculiar character of the humorist. It 
is to be carefully distinguished from wit, which is the quick 
apprehension of relations between ideas apparently dis- 
similar — such relations being generally verbal rather 
than real. Humour looks beneath the surface; it does 
not stay among the familiar outsides and semblances of 
things ; it seizes upon strange, out-of-the-way relations 
between ideas, which are real rather than verbal. In this 
it resembles imagination ; and the humorist must indeed 
possess this fusing and reuniting faculty in a high degree ; 
but the difference is, that the relations between ideas which 
his turn of mind leads him to perceive are mostly odd, 
strange, relations, the exhibition of which, while it makes 
us thoughtful, because the relations are real, not verbal 
merely, awakens also our sense of the ludicrous. We may 
take as an illustration the strange train of ideas in which 



350 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

Hamlet indulges in the scene with the grave-diggers, when 
he "traces in imagination the noble dust of Alexander, 
until he finds it stopping a bung-hole." Again, the pro- 
perty which has been assigned to humour of looking be- 
neath the surface, involves the power of detecting empty 
pretension and hypocrisy, however carefully they may be 
disguised. Under all the trappings and habiliments with 
which he seeks to veil his littleness, the humorist still 
detects the insignificant creature, man ; and delights, by 
homely apologue or humiliating comparison, to hold up a 
mirror in which he may see himself as he is. This is the 
direction in which the humorist approaches very near to 
the satirist, the distinction being that the latter has, while 
the former has not, a definite moral purpose, genuine or 
assumed, in lashing and exposing the weaknesses of man- 
kind. Humour is exhibitive, satire didactic. In humour-, 
as Coleridge says, there is a universalising property; 
satire, on the contrary, seizes upon different classes of 
men, and tends always to personality. It seems never to 
have quite lost the memory of the scenes amid which it 
had its origin — of the Fescennine licence — the unlimited 
freedom of heaping abuse and ridicule upon individuals, 
which were allowed to the Eleusinian mystics upon their 
return from the solemn ceremonies of initiation. 

Sterne, the author of Tristram Shandy and the 
Sentimental Journey, is essentially and above all things 
a humorist. Tristram Shandy is ostensibly a fictitious 
narrative, but it is really a pure work of humour, the 
narrative being destitute of plot, and the incidents only 
serving to bring out the humorous traits and notions of 
the different characters (Mr. Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal 
Trim, &c.) and to give occasion to humorous rhapsodies 
on the part of the author. In Tristram Shandy the 
humour tends to the side of satire ; while in the Sentimen- 
tal Journey it tends to the side of sentiment and pathos. 
The well-known episode on the dead donkey, and the story 



WORKS OF SATIRE, WIT, AND HUMOUR. 351 

of the captive, exhibit this phase of Sterne's humour* 
We extract the former : — 

" The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with 
an ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from 
time to time, then laid them down, looked at them, and shook his 
head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as 
if to eat it, held it some time in his hand, then laid it upon the 
bit of his ass's bridle, looked wistfully at the little arrangement 
he had made, and then gave a sigh. The simplicity of his grief 
drew numbers about him, and La Fleur among the rest, whilst 
the horses were getting ready ; as I continued sitting in the post- 
chaise, I could see and hear over their heads. 

" He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from 
the farthest borders of Franconia ; and had got so far on his return 
home when his ass died. Everyone seemed desirous to know what 
business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey 
from his own home. It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless 
him with three sons, the finest lads in all Germany ; but having 
in one week lost two of the eldest of them by the small-pox, and 
the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of 
being bereft of them all, and made a vow, if Heaven would not 
take him from him also, he would go, in gratitude, to St. Iago in 
Spain. When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopped 
to pay nature his tribute, and wept bitterly. He said, Heaven had 
accepted the conditions, and that he had set out from his cottage 
with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of his 
journey ; that it had ate the same bread with him all the way r 
and was unto him as a friend. 

" Everybody who stood about heard the poor fellow with con- 
cern ; La Fleur offered him money. The mourner said he did not 
want it ; it was not the value of the ass, but the loss of him. The 
ass, he said, he was assured loved him ; and upon this, he told them 
a long story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean 
mountains, which had separated them from each other three days ; 
during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had 
sought the ass ; and that they had scarce either ate or drunk till 
they met. ' Thou hast one comfort, at least,' said I, ' in the loss 
of thy poor beast : I 'm sure thou hast been a merciful master to 



352 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

him.' ' Alas ! ' said the mourner, { I thought so when he was 
alive ; but now that he is dead I think otherwise ; I fear the 
weight of myself and my afflictions together have been too much 
for him ; they have shortened the poor creature's days, and I fear 
I have them to answer for.' ' Shame on the world ! ' said I to 
myself. ' Did we but love each other as this poor soul loved his 
ass, 'twould be something.' " 

Among writings of pure wit, the works of Sidney 
Smith stand unequalled. What brilliancy, what liveliness, 
what bright intelligence, in his Letters to Archdeacon 
Singleton, or his Thoughts on American Repudiation! 
Under this head may also be mentioned the ironical jeu 
d 'esprit by Archbishop Whately, entitled Historic Doubts 
relative to Napoleon Bonaparte. 



3. Oratory, Journalism, Pamphleteering. 

Oratory is of three kinds : that of the pulpit, that of the 
bar, and that of the public assembly, or of the tribune, to 
use a convenient French term. 

When the oratory of the pulpit addresses itself to ques- 
tions purely religious and moral, or when it interprets 
Scripture, it is called Homiletics, or preaching, and must 
be considered in connection with theology. When it deals 
with political questions, or celebrates the virtues of indi- 
viduals, it becomes in the strict sense a branch of oratory. 
The political sermon and the funeral oration are as much 
a part of eloquence as the advocate's address, or the speech 
from the hustings ; — the chief difference lying in the con- 
ditions of delivery, which give to the pulpit orator leisure 
for careful preparation, and preclude the possibility of 
reply. 

In this kind of oratory the great names which France 
can boast of immediately occur to us; — Boucher and 
the preachers of the League, Bossuet, Bourdalone, and 



ORATORY. 353 

Massillon. In English literature we have little that re- 
quires notice but the political sermons and funeral orations 
of Jeremy Taylor, and some sermons by South. Taylor's 
sermon at the funeral of Archbishop Bramhall has some 
fine passages ; yet his success in this kind of composition 
was on the whole inconsiderable. 

The oratory of the bar differs from that of the pulpit 
and the tribune in that the conditions under which it exists 
oblige it ordinarily to take for its guiding and animating 
lights, not general moral principles, but legal maxims and 
decisions ; and, even in cases where an appeal to general 
principles is admissible, to give them always a special and 
immediate application. A certain relative inferiority 
hence attaches to this kind of eloquence. It is not ordi- 
narily that of the convinced mind, communicating its con- 
victions to others for some high purpose, whether that be 
the exhibition of pure truth or the maintenance of the 
public welfare, or at lowest the defence of party principles, 
but that of the advocate whose single aim it is to make 
out his case, and advance the interests of his client. 
Exceptional cases, however, are not uncommon — as on 
the trials of eminent public men or notorious criminals, — 
in which the advocate appears as the vindicator of human 
or divine justice, and discharges a function of great dignity. 
Of this nature are the orations of Cicero against Verres and 
Catiline, and, among ourselves, the speeches of Burke on the 
impeachment of Warren Hastings. But the instances are 
more common in which lawyers in public trials have been 
the instruments of royal suspicion or party hate. Never 
was eloquence more shamefully prostituted than by Coke 
in his prosecution of Ealeigh,'or by Bacon when he ap- 
peared against his benefactor Essex. 

The oratory of the public assembly is illustrated in 
English literature by a long roll of historic names, some 
of which are not unlikely to rival in perpetuity of renown 
the names of the great orators of antiquity. Far above all 

A A 



354 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

others rises the eloquence of Burke. The following extract 
from his Speech at Bristol previous to the Election in. 1780, 
refers to the demoralising effects of the penal laws against 
the Catholics : — 

, " In this situation men not only shrink from the frowns of a stern 
magistrate, but they are obliged to fly from their very species* 
The seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse, in social 
habitudes. The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. Their 
tables and beds are surrounded with snares. All the means given 
by Providence to make life safe and comfortable are perverted 
into instruments of terror and torment. This species of universal 
subserviency, that makes the very servant who waits behind your 
chair the arbiter of your life and fortune, has such a tendency to 
degrade and abase mankind, and to deprive them of that assured 
and liberal state of mind, which alone can make us what we ought 
to be, that I vow to God I would sooner bring myself to put a man 
to immediate death for opinions I disliked, and so to get rid of the 
man and his opinions at once, than to fret him with a feverish 
being, tainted with the jail distemper of a contagious servitude, 
to keep him above ground an animated mass of putrefaction, cor- 
rupted himself and corrupting all about him." 

The eulogium upon Sir Greorge Savile, a little farther on, 
has a terse and classic turn of expression, which our 
language, from its want of inflections, has rarely attained 
to: — 

" I hope that few things which have a tendency to bless or to 
adorn life have wholly escaped my observation in my passage 
through it. I have sought the acquaintance of that gentleman, 
and have seen him in all situations. He is a true genius, with an 
understanding vigorous, and acute, and refined, and distinguishing 
even to excess ; and illuminated with a most unbounded, pecu- 
liar, and original cast of imagination. With these he possesses 
many external and instrumental advantages ; and he makes use 
of them ah. His fortune is among the largest ; a fortune which, 
wholly unencumbered as it is with one single charge from luxury, 
vanity, or excess, sinks under the benevolence of its dispenser. 
This private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotism, renders 
his whole being the estate of the public, in which he has not 



ORATORY. 355 

reserved a peculium for himself of profit, diversion, or relaxation. 
During the session, the first in and the last out of the House of 
Commons, he passes from the senate to the camp ; and seldom 
seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in the senate to serve 
his country, or in the field to defend it." 



The function of the journalist so far resembles that of the 
orator, that his object also is to produce immediate con- 
viction or persuasion, with a view to action, But he speaks 
to his audience through the broad sheet, not by word of 
mouth. The extensive use of this mode of address in 
modern times is attributable, partly to the populousness 
and geographical extent of modern communities, partly to 
the increased diffusion of a certain grade of culture, partly 
also to the invention of a variety of mechanical contrivances, 
met by corresponding social arrangements, by which the 
journalist is enabled to address his readers at regular and 
brief intervals. At Athens the sovereign people all resided 
within easy reach of the Pnyx or the Dionysiac theatre, so 
that the orators who led them could reach them through 
their ears, and were not compelled, like our journalists, to 
appeal to citizens living at a distance through the eye. It 
must be noted that the journalist and the circulator of 
news, though the two offices are usually combined in 
practice, have distinct functions in theory. Newspapers 
originated, as the name itself implies, in the attempt to 
discharge the humbler office, that of collecting and 
disseminating news. But as the demand for correct and 
frequent intelligence increased, and the means of sup- 
plying it were also multiplied, the conductors of newspapers 
naturally seized the opportunity thus afforded them of 
accompanying their news with their own comments and ex- 
planations. It is from the power and social influence which, 
the able use of these opportunities has secured to it that 
the newspaper press has received the name of the Fourth 
Estate, and that journalism has almost risen to the dignity 

A A 2 



856 ENGLISH LITEKATUKE. 

of a profession. At the present day the journalist some- 
times discards the business of a circulator of news alto- 
gether — as in the instance of the ( Saturday Keview.' The 
newspaper, as originally understood, is now represented 
only by government and mercantile gazettes, and similar 
publications. 



The pamphlet, whether its ends be political or politico- 
religious, is equivalent to an elaborate speech, which by 
means of the printing press obtains a diffusion immeasur- 
ably exceeding that which oral delivery can accomplish. 
In a country where the press is free, this indirect kind of 
oratory is sure to be largely resorted to, especially in times 
of political agitation ; and many an eager political theorist, 
whom compulsory silence would have turned into a con- 
spirator, has relieved his excitement by writing, and proved 
innocuous as a pamphleteer. The civil war of the 17th 
century, the reign of Anne, and the fifty years terminating 
in 1835, are the periods at which pamphleteering has most 
flourished amongst us. We will give a specimen from a 
work of each period. Few pamphlets composed in the first 
have much literary value, except the politico-religious 
tracts of Milton. The following extract forms a portion 
of his eulogy upon the Long Parliament in the Apology 
for Smectymnuus : — 

" With such a majesty had their wisdom begirt itself, that 
whereas others had levied war to subdue a nation that sought for 
peace, they sitting here in peace could so many miles extend the 
force of their single words as to overawe the dissolute stoutness 
of an armed power, secretly stirred up and almost hired against 
them. And having by a solemn protestation vowed themselves 
and the kingdom anew to God and his service, and by a prudent 
foresight above what their fathers thought on, prevented the dis- 
solution and frustration of their designs by an untimely breaking 
up ; notwithstanding all the treasonous plots against them, all the 
rumours either of rebellion or invasion, they have not been yet 



ORATORY. 357 

brought to change their constant resolution, ever to think fear- 
lessly of their own safeties, and hopefully of the commonwealth ; 
which hath gained them such an admiration from all good men 
that now they hear it as their ordinary surname to be saluted the 
fathers of their country, and sit as gods among daily petitions and 
public thanks flowing in upon them. Which doth so little yet 
exalt them in their own thoughts, that with all gentle affability 
and courteous acceptance, they both receive and return that tri- 
bute of thanks which is tendered them ; testifying their zeal and 
desire to spend themselves as it were piecemeal upon the grievances 
and wrongs of their distressed nation ; insomuch that the meanest 
artisans and labourers, at other times also women, and often the 
younger sort of servants, assembling with their complaints, and 
that sometimes in a less humble guise than for petitioners, have 
come with confidence that neither their meanness would be re- 
jected, nor their simplicity contemned, nor yet their urgency 
distasted, either by the dignity, wisdom, or moderation of that 
supreme senate ; nor did they depart unsatisfied." 

The next extract is from Swift's Conduct of the Allies, 
a pamphlet published in 1712. By the 'reigning fa- 
vourites ' are meant Grodolphin and the Duke and Duchess 
of Marlborough. The war of the Spanish succession was 
now practically over ; the ministry which carried it on had 
been dismissed; and Swift's object was to reconcile men's 
minds to the peace which the new ministry were endea- 
vouring to negotiate, by enlarging on the wasteful and 
corrupt manner in which the nation had been plunged in 
debt in order to carry on a war which benefited only the 
allies, the English general and the capitalists : — 

" But when the war was thus begun, there soon fell in other in- 
cidents here at home, which made the continuance of it necessary 
for those who were the chief advisers. The Whigs were at that 
time out of all credit or consideration : the reigning favourites had 
always carried what was called the Tory principle, at least as high 
as our constitution could bear ; and most others in great employ- 
ments were wholly in the church interest. These last, among 
whom several were persons of the greatest merit, quality, and 
consequence, were not able to endure the many instances of pride, 

A A 3 



358 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

insolence, avarice, and ambition, which those favourites began so 
early to discover, nor to see them presuming to be the sole dis- 
pensers of the royal favour. However, their opposition was to no 
purpose ; they wrestled with too great a power, and were soon 
crushed under it. For those in possession, finding they could 
never be quiet in their usurpations while others had any credit 
who were at least upon an equal foot of merit, began to make 
overtures to the discarded Whigs, who would be content with any 
terms of accommodation. Thus commenced this Solemn League 
and Covenant, which hath ever since been cultivated with so much 
zeal and application. The great traders in money were wholly 
devoted to the Whigs, who had first raised them. The army, the 
court, and the treasury, continued under the old despotic adminis- 
tration : the Whigs were received into employment, left to manage 
the parliament, cry down the landed interest, and worry the 
church. Meantime our allies, who were not ignorant that all this 
artificial structure had no true foundation in the hearts of the 
people, resolved to make their best use of it, as long as it should 
last. And the General's credit being raised to a great height at 
home by our success in Flanders, the Dutch began their gradual 
impositions, lessening their quotas, breaking their stipulations, 
garrisoning the towns we took for them, without supplying their 
troops; with many other infringements. All which we were 
forced to submit to, because the General was made easy ; because 
the moneyed men at home were fond of the war ; because the 
Whigs were not yet firmly settled ; and because that exorbitant 
degree of power, which was built upon a supposed necessity of 
employing particular persons, would go off in a peace. It is 
needless to add that the emperor and other princes followed the 
example of the Dutch, and succeeded as well for the same reasons." 

Among the innumerable tracts and pamphlets produced 
in the third period, the following passage is selected 
almost at random ; it is from a pamphlet written by Lord 
Byron in 1821, in the form of a letter to a friend in 
England, examining the Eev. W. L. Bowles's strictures on 
the life and writings of Pope. The passage is interesting, 
as embodying one great poet's deliberate estimate of 
another : — 



HISTORY. 359 

" Of Pope I have expressed my opinion elsewhere, as also of 
•the effects -which the present attempts at poetry hare had upon 
our literature. If any great national or natural convulsion could 
or should overwhelm your country in such sort as to sweep Great 
Britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and leave only that — 
after all, the most living of human things — a dead language^ 
to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future and 
far generations, upon foreign shores ; if your literature should 
become the learning of mankind, divested of party cabals. 
temporary fashions, and national pride and prejudice, an English- 
man, anxious that the posterity of strangers should know that 
there had been such a thing as a British epic and tragedy, 
might wish for the preservation of Shakspeare and Milton ; but 
the surviving world would snatch Pope from the wreck, and let 
the rest sink with the people. He is the only poet that never 
shocks ; the only poet whose faultlessness has been made his re- 
proach. Cast your eye over his productions ; consider their extent, 
and contemplate their variety — pastoral, passion, mock-heroic, 
translation, satire, ethics — all excellent, and often perfect."' 



4. History : — Contemporary and Retrospective. 



Under this general heading we include true narratives 
of all kinds. For the faithful record of any actual human 
experience whatever may be regarded as a work subsidiary 
to, and promotive of, the end of History proper : which 
is, the representation of the evolution, either of the 
general life of mankind (universal history), or of the life 
of some one nation in particular. Biography of every 
description is thus included among the departments subsi- 
diary to history. Indeed it has been proved by some late 
brilliant examples — in the case of Macaulay's England 
for instance — that the historian who rightly imderstands 
his business can glean nearly as much material suitable for 
his purpose from the lives of private persons as from those 
of princes, statesmen, or generals. Accounts of voyages 
and travels are also, though more remotely, subsidiary to 
history. The observations of an intelligent traveller in 

A A 4 



V s 



360 ENGLISH LITEKATUKE. 

civilised countries are obviously of the highest value to the 
historian. Arthur Young's Travels in France before the 
Revolution and Laing's Notes of a Traveller are cases in 
point. And even the descriptions given by the first ex- 
plorers of wild uninhabited regions are subsidiary to the 
history of later generations. To the historian of America, 
the narrative of Raleigh's blind and struggling progress 
along the swampy coasts of North Carolina, while engaged 
in laying the foundations of the colony of Virginia, cannot 
fail to be of the highest use and interest. So when the 
history of the Australian colonies comes to be written, the 
works of Mitchell, Sturt, Grey, Leichhardt, and other 
hardy explorers, will assuredly furnish a large portion of 
the matter of its introductory chapters. 

History proper is of two kinds : 1, contemporary ; 2, re- 
trospective or reflective. A third kind — philosophical 
history — has been added by some German metaphysi- 
cians.* By this is meant, the scientific exhibition of the 
manner in which the state of human society in any given 
generation inevitably causes, through the operation of 
physical laws, the state of society found in the next 
generation. As, however, the life of a nation or of the race 
is evolved by human actions, and it has not yet been 
proved, however confidently asserted, by these philosophers, 
that such actions are subject to physical necessity — in other 
words, that the human will is not free — those who believe 
in the opposite doctrines of responsibility and free-will, 
will not be disposed to admit the possibility of history 
being correctly written upon such a hypothesis. 

1. Under the description of contemporary history are 
comprised, in English literature, many works which from 
the literary point of view are nearly worthless, together 
with a few which are of rare excellence. The former 
character applies to the contemporary portions of our old 
English chronicles, Fabyan, Hall, Grafton, Holinshed, 
* See Hegel's Philosophie der Geschichte. 



HISTOET. 361 

Stowe, &c. Ludlow's and Whitlocke's Memoirs, relating to 
the civil war of Charles I.'s time, though much superior to 
these, are flat in style and dull through deficiency of de- 
scriptive power. Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion 
is the most perfect contemporary history that Ave possess ; 
next to it may be named Burnet's History of His Oivn 
Times, and Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the Last Ten 
Years of the Reign of George II. 

Clarendon's history is a work with which the student 
of our literature should make himself familiar. It is 
indeed very long, but the theme is one so deeply interest- 
ing, and the revolution which it records has so decisively 
influenced the whole course of our history down to the 
present day, that he may be excused for spending some 
time over it. There are many digressions too — Clarendon 
is partial to them — which if necessary may be omitted. 
Of course the book is not impartial, nor entirely trust- 
worthy. For not only was the author a keen partisan on 
the royalist side : — he was also a lawyer, and had a legal 
turn of mind; and was thence disqualified to a certain 
degree from weighing the conduct and aims of the dif- 
ferent parties in even scales. The Puritans on the one 
hand, and the Catholics on the other, were pursuing 
objects which the law of the land, in establishing the 
Church of England, had condemned ; and this is reason 
enough with Clarendon for branding those objects as bad, 
and their pursuit as criminal. For instance, he thus speaks 
of the infamous sentence passed on Prynne and his fellow- 
sufferers, referred to above at p. 109 : — 

" These three persons (Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton) having 
been, for several follies and hbelhng humours, first gently re- 
prehended, and after, for their incorrigibleness, more severely 
censured and imprisoned, found some means in prison of corres- 
pondence, which was not before known to be between them ; and 
to combine themselves in a more pestilent and seditious libel 
than they had ever before vented ; in which the honour of the 



362 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

king, queen, counsellors, and bishops was with equal license 
blasted and traduced ; which was faithfully dispersed by their 
proselytes in the city. The authors were quickly and easily 
known, and had indeed too much ingenuity to deny it, and were 
thereupon brought together to the Star-chamber, ore tenus, where 
they behaved themselves with marvellous insolence, with full 
confidence demanding that 'the bishops who sat in the court,' 
(being only the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of 
London) ' might not be present, because they were their enemies, 
and so parties ; ' which, how scandalous and ridiculous soever it 
seemed then there, was good logic and good law two years after 
in Scotland, and served to banish the bishops of that kingdom 
both from the council table and the assembly. Upon a very 
patient and solemn hearing, in as full a court as ever I saw in 
that place, without any difference in opinion or dissenting voice, 
they were all three censured as scandalous, seditious, and infamous 
persons, ' to lose their ears in the pillory, and to be imprisoned 
in several gaols during the king's pleasure ; ' all which was 
executed with rigour and severity enough." 

But whatever defects, whether of matter or manner, 
may be alleged against this work, the style is so attractive, 
— has such an equable, easy, and dignified flow, — that it can 
never cease to be popular. Perhaps Clarendon's greatest 
merit is his skill in character-drawing. Take for example 
the character of Hampden : — 

" He was a gentleman of a good family in Buckinghamshire, 
and born to a fair fortune, and of a most civil and affable de- 
portment. In his entrance into the world he indulged to himself 
all the license in sports, and exercises, and company, which was 
used by men of the most jolly conversation. Afterwards, he 
retired to a more reserved and melancholy society, yet preserving 
his own natural cheerfulness and vivacity, and, above all, a 
flowing courtesy to all men ; though they who conversed nearly 
with him found him growing into a dislike of the ecclesiastical 
government of the church, yet most believed it rather a dislike 
of some churchmen, and of some introducements of theirs, which 
he apprehended might disquiet the public peace. He was rather 
of reputation in his own country than of public discourse or fame 



HISTORY. 363 

in the kingdom, before the business of ship-money ; but then he 
grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who and 
what he was that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty 
and property of the kingdom, and rescue his country, as he 
thought, from being made a prey to the court. His carriage 
throughout this agitation was with that rare temper and modesty, 
that they who watched him narrowly to find some advantage 
against his person, to make him less resolute in his cause, were 
compelled to give him a just testimony. And the judgement that 
was given against him infinitely more advanced him than the 
service for which it was given. When this parliament began 
(being returned knight of the shire for the county where he lived), 
the eyes of all men were fixed on him as their patrice pater, and 
the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and 
rocks which threatened it. And I am persuaded his power and 
interest at that time was greater to do good or hurt than any man's 
in the kingdom, or than any man in his rank hath had in any 
time ; for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affec- 
tions seemed so publicly guided that no corrupt or private ends 
could bias them. 

****** 

" After he was among those members accused by the king of 
high treason, he was much altered ; his nature and carriage 
seeming much fiercer than it did before. And, without question, 
when he first drew his sword he threw away the scabbard ; for he 
passionately opposed the overture made by the king for a treaty 
from Nottingham, and as eminently, any expedients that might 
have produced any accommodations in this that was at Oxford ; 
and was principally relied on to prevent any infusions which 
might be made into the Earl of Essex towards peace, or to render 
them ineffectual if they were made ; and was indeed much more 
relied on by that party than the general himself. In the first 
entrance into the troubles he undertook the command of a regiment 
of foot, and performed the duty of a colonel on all occasions most 
punctually. He was very temperate in diet, and a supreme 
governor over all his passions and affections, and had thereby a 
great power over other men's. He was of an industry and vigilance 
not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious ; and of parts 
not to be imposed upon by the most subtle or sharp ; and of a 



364 ENGLISH LITEKATURE. 

personal courage equal to his best parts : so that he was an enemy 
not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend ; 
and as much to be apprehended where he was so as any man 
could deserve to be. And therefore his death was no less pleasing 
to the one party than it was condoled in the other. In a word, 
what was said of Cinna might well be applied to him — ' He had 
a head to contrive, and a tongue to persuade, and a hand to 
execute any mischief.' His death, therefore, seemed to be a great 
deliverance to the nation." 

Burnet's Own Times is a work that is full of in- 
accuracies, and does not rise above the level of a plain 
conversational style ; it however throws much valuable 
light on the history of civil transactions in England and 
Scotland during the latter half of the seventeenth century. 
This writer also is graphic, and probably faithful, in his 
delineations of character. 

Horace Walpole, son of the Whig statesman, Sir Eobert 
Walpole, had a near view during his long life of the secret 
machinery by which the state policy of Britain was set in 
motion ; and we have the results of his observation in 
his Memoirs above-mentioned, as well as in the lively 
and lengthy series of his Letters. But Horace, though 
polished and keen, is by no means a genial writer; 
selfish himself, he did not much believe in human disinter- 
estedness ; and, without the large intellectual grasp of (rib- 
bon, he was destitute of those strong human sympathies 
and antipathies, which impart a certain interest to the 
works of much inferior men. 

2. Eetrospective history may be either legendary or evi- 
dential ; by which is meant history, the statements of which 
on matters of fact rest on probable moral evidence. The 
legendary history relates events supposed to occur at dis- 
tant periods, the evidence for which is mere popular tra- 
dition. In such a history, no event, or connection of 
events — no names or genealogies — can be accepted as 
accurately corresponding to reality. Yet, as there are 



HISTORY. 365 

usually certain grains of historic truth deducible from 
even the most imaginative of these histories, and as the 
writers at any rate suppose themselves to be relators of 
fact not fiction, the reader must not confound this class 
of works with fictitious narratives. Greoffrey of Monmouth's 
Histovia Britonum is a pure legendary history. All the 
old English chroniclers begin their histories just as Livy 
does, with legendary recitals, of which Geoffrey's work is 
the principal source. In most of them a portion of retro- 
spective history succeeds, compiled from the writings of 
their predecessors. This is followed by the narrative of 
contemporary events, which is usually the only portion of 
such works that has any value. 

Eetrospective histories of the evidential class proceed 
upon the same principles, whether they treat of ancient 
or of modern civilisation. The same critical rules are 
appealed to in each case for the purpose of testing the 
credibility of the witnesses, ascertaining the dates, or other 
circumstances connected with the composition of docu- 
ments — in short, for accomplishing the great end of this 
kind of historical writing, which is to paint a past age as 
it really was. We proceed to notice the chief works of 
this class in English literature, proceeding from ancient 
to modern history. 

The History of the World, by Ealeigh, professes to 
describe the course of events in the chief countries of the 
ancient world, from the creation to the fall of the Mace- 
donian kingdom in 168 B.C. But, to say nothing of the 
complete sifting and intercomparison which the original 
authors themselves have undergone in the interim — so 
much subsidiary and collateral information of all kinds 
has been collected since the time of Ealeigh, that his work, 
as a whole, has become almost worthless. The most re- 
markable passages are those in which the chivalrous old 
campaigner illustrates the details of Macedonian or Eo- 
man battles, by referring to scenes in his own varied and 



366 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

turbulent life. Now and then the style rises to a very 
clear and noble strain, as in the following sentences, with 
which the work concludes : — 

" By this, which we have already set down, is seen the be- 
ginning and end of the three first monarchies of the world, whereof 
the founders and erectors thought that they could never have 
ended. That of Eome, which made the fourth, was also at this 
time almost at the highest. We have left it flourishing in the 
middle of the field, having rooted up or cut down all that kept it 
from the eyes and admiration of the world ; but after some con- 
tinuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had ; the storms of 
ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one against 
another, her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of 
barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down. 

****** 

" For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and con- 
tinuance of this boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add 
to that which hath been already said, that the kings and princes 
of the world have always laid before them the actions, but not 
the ends, of those great ones which preceded them. They are 
always transported with the glory of the one, but they never 
mind the misery of the other, till they find the experience in 
themselves. They neglect the advice of God, while they enjoy 
life, or hope it ; but they foUow the counsel of Death upon his 
first approach. It is he that puts into man all the wisdom of the 
world, without speaking a word, which God, with all the words 
of His law, promises, or threats doth not infuse. Death, which 
hateth and destroy eth man, is believed ; God, which hath made 
him and loves him, is always deferred — l I have considered, 
saith Solomon, ' all the works that are under the sun, and, 
behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit ; ' but who believes it 
till Death tells it us ? . . . .0 eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! 
whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath 
dared, thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, 
thou only hast cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast 
drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, 
cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these 
two narrow words, Hie jacet ! " 



HISTOEY. 367 

Mr. Mitford was the first Englishman who attempted, 
in emulation of Gribbon, to write at length the history of 
Greece. Dr. Thirlwall and Mr. Grrote have followed more 
ably and exhaustively over the same ground ; but as we 
do not propose to comment upon works by living authors, 
we abstain from the attempt to describe or appreciate their 
labours. 

In Eoman history, Hooke, the friend of Pope, was first 
in the field ; and to him succeeded Dr. Ferguson, with his 
dry book on the Eoman Eepublic. 

The vast sweep taken in the Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire exhibits Gibbon's wonderful capacity, not 
only for mastering and reproducing the sequence and con- 
nection of events through a long and obscure period in 
the principal countries of Europe and Asia, but also for 
dealing with what may be called the statics of the subject, 
in those detailed, consistent, and luminous pictures which 
he draws of the state of society as existing in a particular 
country at a particular time. The main body of the work 
commences with the reign of Trajan (a.d 98) and ends 
with the fall of the Eastern Empire (a.d. 1453) ; but three 
supplementary chapters " review the state and revolutions 
of the Eoman city " (to which, it will be remembered, Grib- 
bon had limited his original design) from the twelfth to the 
sixteenth century. But though it is difficult to speak too 
highly of the genius displayed in this memorable work, it 
must be added, that the fidelity of the historical picture 
which it exhibits is greatly marred by the Sadducean scepti- 
cism of the writer. When a Christian bishop or doctor, or a 
religious king, comes before his field of vision, it is not in 
Gibbon to be just ; he cannot or will not believe that such 
a man was anything more than a compound of enthusiasm 
and superstition, in whom morality was always ready to 
gif e way to ecclesiastical considerations ; and his sneer- 
ing cavils seem to leave their trail upon the purest virtue, 
the most exalted heroism, which the times that he writes 



368 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of produced for the instruction of mankind. He is in 
thorough sympathy with no one except Julian the Apos- 
tate. It is truly unfortunate that no Englishman has 
treated of the history of the Church during the first five 
centuries with ability or knowledge at all comparable 
to Gibbon's. No Fleury, or Dollinger, or De Broglie, has 
as yet arisen among ourselves to fill this vacant place in 
our literature. 

Dr. Arnold's unfinished Eoman history, based upon that of 
Niebuhr, extends from the founding of the city to the middle 
of the second Punic war. Two additional volumes, written 
at an earlier period but not published till after the author's 
death, carry on the history of the Eoman Commonwealth 
from the close of the second Punic war to the death of 
Augustus, with a separate chapter on the reign of Trajan. 

Among those who have written the history of England, 
Scotland, or Ireland, it is impossible to do more than men- 
tion a few prominent names. 

Sir Thomas More's History of the Reign of Edward V. 
is a youthful and rhetorical production, which, accord- 
ing to Horace Walpole, who, in his Historic Doubts re- 
specting Richard III., has sifted the whole matter very 
ably, will nowhere stand a critical examination and con- 
frontation with the original authorities. Lord Bacon's 
History of Henry VII, though composed in a homely 
style, is a masterly work. Men's motives are deeply probed, 
and their actions wisely weighed ; laws and events affect- 
ing the course of trade, the progress of agriculture, and 
the welfare of particular classes of society, are carefully 
recorded and examined : truth without disguise seems to 
be the writer's paramount design ; and characters are drawn 
as by an eye that saw all, and a hand that could paint all. 
Milton's History of England is a mere fragment. Neal's 
History of the Puritans, and another of Neiv England 
by the same author, are both valuable works, because care- 
fully based on documentary and oral evidence. But the 



HISTOKY. 369 

most eminent historians of the seventeenth century belong 
to the contemporary class. 

In the next century, and down to 1850, we can barely 
mention the names of Eapin, Carte, Lord Hailes, Belsham, 
and Adolphus. Plume's clear and manly style would have 
insured to his History of England a longer preeminence, 
had not his indolence allowed inaccuracies and a want of 
references to deform his work. Eobertson's History of 
Scotland is pleasant reading, but uncritical. The work 
similarly entitled by Sir Walter Scott embraces all the 
earlier portion of the history, from a.d. 80 to the ac- 
cession of Mary Queen of Scots, which Eobertson had 
omitted. The most complete and accurate history of 
England, so far as it extends, which has yet appeared, is 
that of Dr. Lingard. Unfortunately, it breaks off at the 
revolution of 1688. Macaulay's volumes commenced 
to appear in 1848. Moore's History of Ireland is a 
work unworthy of his genius. Lanigan's Ecclesiastical 
History of Ireland, embracing the period from the 
conversion of the Irish by St. Patrick to the loss of their 
national independence in the twelfth century, is a calm, 
dispassionate, and profoundly learned work. 

No very signal success has been achieved by English 
writers in compiling histories of modern continental states. 
Knolles' History of the Turks must be named under this 
head ; and Coxe's Memoirs of the House of Austria, and 
Eussell's Modem Europe, and Eoscoe's Lorenzo de 
Medici. Here also must be placed Arnold's Introductory 
Lectures on Modern History, which contain several bril- 
liant isolated sketches. One such passage we extract : — 

" Ten years afterwards there broke out by far the most alarm- 
ing danger of universal dominion which had ever threatened 
Europe. The most military people in Europe became engaged in a 
war for their very existence. Invasion on the frontiers, civil war 
and all imaginable horrors raging within — the ordinary relations 
of life went to wrack, and every Frenchman became a soldier. 

B B 



370 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

It was a multitude numerous as the hosts of Persia, but animated 
by the courage and skill and energy of the old Eomans. One 
thing alone was wanting, that which Pyrrhus said the Eomans 
wanted to enable them to conquer the world — a general and a 
ruler like himself. There was wanted a master hand to restore 
and maintain peace at home, and to concentrate and direct the 
immense military resources of France against her foreign enemies. 
And such an one appeared in Napoleon. Pacifying La Vendee, re- 
ceiving back the emigrants, restoring the church, remodelling the 
law, personally absolute, yet carefully preserving and maintaining 
all the great points which the nation had won at the revolution, 
Napoleon united in himself not only the power but the whole 
will of France, and that power and will were guided by a genius 
for war such as Europe had never seen since Csesar. The effect 
was absolutely magical. In November 1799 he was made First 
Consul ; he found France humbled by defeats, his Italian con- 
quests lost, his allies invaded, his own frontier threatened. He 
took the field in May 1800, and in June the whole fortune of 
the war was changed, and Austria driven out of Lombardy by 
the victory of Marengo. Still the flood of the fide rose higher 
and higher, and every successive wave of its advance swept away 
a kingdom. Earthly state has never reached a prouder pinnacle 
than when Napoleon, in June 1812, gathered his army at Dres- 
den, and there received the homage of subject kings. And now 
what was the principal adversary of this tremendous power ? by 
whom was it checked, and resisted, and put down ? By none, 
and by nothing, but the direct and manifest interposition of God ! 
I know of no language so well fitted to describe that victorious 
advance to Moscow, and the utter humiliation of the retreat, as 
the language of the prophet with respect to the advance and sub- 
sequent destruction of the host of Sennacherib." 

Orme, Mill, and Elphinstone, are the chief authorities 
for the history of India. The first two confine their atten- 
tion to British India, but Elphinstone's work treats chiefly 
of the times anterior to European occupation. For the 
history of the colonial dependencies of European states, 
Eobertson (in his History of America) and Bryan Edwards, 
author of a history of Jamaica, are the only names of much 



HISTORY. 371 

importance. Prescott, Bancroft, and other American 
writers, have ably taken up that portion of the subject 
which relates to the American continent. 

Mr. James and Captain Brenton have written the naval 
history of Britain. The latter has the advantage in style, 
the former in accuracy and clearness of arrangement. Sir 
William Napier's History of the Peninsular War is a work 
of the highest order. We cannot resist the temptation of 
transcribing one of the many glowing and eloquent pas- 
sages with which it abounds. It refers to the closing 
struggle of the battle of Albuera : — 

" The conduct of a few brave men soon changed this state of 
affairs. Colonel Robert Arbuthnot, pushing between the double 
fire of the mistaken troops, arrested that mischief; while Cole, 
with the fusiliers, flanked by a battalion of the Lusitanian Legion, 
under Colonel Hawkshawe, mounted the hill, dispersed the 
lancers, recovered the captured guns, and appeared on the right 
of Houghton's brigade exactly as Abercrombie passed it on the 
left. 

" Such a gallant line, issuing from the midst of the smoke, 
and rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken mul- 
titude, startled the enemy's heavy masses, which were increasing 
and pressing onwards as to an assured victory : they wavered, 
hesitated, and then vomiting forth a storm of fire, hastily en- 
deavoured to enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of 
grape from all their artillery whistled through the British ranks. 
Myers was killed ; Cole, and the three colonels, Ellis, Blakeney, 
and Hawkshawe, fell wounded ; and the fusilier battalions, struck 
by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships. 
Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed with their terrible 
enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the 
British soldier fights. In vain did Soult by voice and gesture 
animate his Frenchmen ; in vain did the noblest veterans, ex- 
tricating themselves from the crowded columns, sacrifice their 
lives to gain time for the mass to bear up on such a fair field ; 
in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striving, fire in- 
discriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen, hovering 
upon their flank, threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing 

B B 2 



372 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of un- 
disciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weakened the stability 
of their order ; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns 
in their front ; their measured tread shook the ground ; their 
murderous volleys swept away the head of every formation ; their 
deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries which arose 
from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as foot by foot, and with 
a horrid carnage, it was driven by the incessant vigour of the 
attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French 
reserves, joining with the struggling multitude, endeavour to sus- 
tain the fight ; their efforts only increased the irremediable con- 
fusion, and the mighty mass, giving way like a loosened cliff, went 
headlong down the ascent. The rain flowed after in streams dis- 
coloured with blood, and fifteen hundred unwounded men, the 
remnant of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood 
triumphant on the fatal hill." 

Biography : its Divisions ; Diaries, Letters. 

This branch of literature opens with autobiographies, 
which, when well executed, constitute its most valuable 
and interesting portion. We have but little to set by the 
side of the charming " Menioires," in innumerable vo- 
lumes, which form so piquant a portion of the literature of 
France. Scott's fragment of autobiography, printed at 
the beginning of the Life by Lockhart, is admirable ; but, 
unfortunately, it is only a fragment, and breaks off when 
the hero has reached his twentieth year. A similar frag- 
ment by Southey, though longer, makes less progress, for 
it terminates at the fifteenth year ; nor do we much regret 
its unfinished state. Gibbon's Memoirs are much in the 
French style and manner, and form, perhaps, the most 
interesting and best-executed autobiography that we 
possess, Hume also, and Priestley, have each given us 
an account of his life and opinions. Baxter's unwieldy 
Relliquice Baxteriance, or Narrative of the most memo- 
rable Passages of his Life and Times, has been already 
mentioned (see p. 141). 



BIOGRAPHY. 373 

In Biography exclusive of autobiography, we may 
distinguish — 1. general compilations, 2. national com- 
pilations, 3. class biographies, 4. personal biographies. 
Of the first kind, it is to our reproach that until the last 
few years we have had no specimen deserving of mention. 
To the Biographie Universelle and the Conversations- 
Lexicon, we had for a long time nothing to oppose but 
the insignificant compilations of Aikin, Grainger, and 
Gorton. Alexander Chalmers was the first to bring out 
a biographical dictionary of some pretension, but even in 
this the omissions are numerous and important. In our 
own day, two enterprising publishers, Messrs. Knight and 
Mackenzie, have done, and are doing, much to supply the 
deficiency — Mr. Knight by the biographical portion of 
his English Cyclopaedia — Mr. Mackenzie by his Imperial 
Dictionary of Biography, now in course of publication at 
Glasgow. 

2. Of the second kind, we have the Biographia Bri- 
tannica, a work of great research, though with many 
serious omissions. The original edition embraced the 
entire alphabet ; but its defects were so glaring as to 
determine Dr. Kippis and others to undertake a re-issue 
of the work upon an enlarged scale ; the new edition, 
however, was never carried farther than the commence- 
ment of the letter F. Fuller's Worthies of England, 
noticed at page 141, is a work of the same description. 

3. Of class biographies — not to mention the Latin 
works of Leland, Bale, and Pitseus, " De Illustribus Bri- 
tannise Scriptoribus," — the chief examples are, "Walton's 
Lives of Anglican Divines (including Hooker, Donne, 
and Sanderson), Wood's Athence Oxonienses, which is a 
collection of short memoirs of Oxford men, Johnson's Lives 
of the Poets, and Hartley Coleridge's Biographia Borealis, 
or Lives of Northern Worthies. From Johnson's account 
of Gray we extract a passage strongly characteristic of his 
peculiar style : — 

B E 3 



374 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

" The Bard appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and 
others have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. 
Algarotti thinks it superior to its original ; and, if preference de- 
pends on the imagery and animation, of the two poems, his judge- 
ment is right. There is in the Bard more force, more thought, 
and more variety. But to copy is less than to invent ; and 
the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The 
fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible ; but its revival 
disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. Incre- 
dulus odi. 

u To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by 
fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions, has little diffi- 
culty ; for he that forsakes the probable may always find the 
marvellous. And it has little use ; we are aiFected only as we 
believe ; we are improved only as we find something to be 
imitated or declined. I do not see that the Bard promotes any 
truth, moral or political. 

" His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes ; the ode is 
finished before the ear has learned its measures, and consequently 
before it can receive pleasure from their consonance and re- 
currence. 

" Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated ; 
but technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It 
is in the power of every man to rush abruptly upon his subject 
that has read the ballad of Johnny Armstrong — 

' Is there ever a man in all Scotland — ' 

The initial resemblances, or alliterations, 'ruin, ruthless, helm 
or hauberk,' are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours 
at sublimity." 

4. Among personal biographies, Boswell's Life of John- 
son holds confessedly the first place. Next to it in point 
of literary value, but of equal if not greater intrinsic 
interest, conies Lockhart's Life of Scott. It must be 
owned that we English have not done that part of our 
hero-worship particularly well, which consists in writing 
good lives of our heroes. Shakspeare's life was never 
written at all. Toland's and Philips' lives of Milton, and 



BIOGRAPHY. 375 

Noble's memoirs of Cromwell and his family, all fall far 
beneath their subjects. KufThead's Life of Pope is utterly- 
contemptible. Dryden and Swift have fared better, 
having found a competent and zealous biographer in 
Scott. Southey also gained much credit by his biogra- 
phies of Wesley and Nelson ; and it may be said generally 
that during the present century we have done much to 
make up our past deficiencies in this department. Scott's 
Life of Napoleon is rather a history of the revolutionary 
period than a personal memoir- Moore's Life and Letters 
of Lord Byron, though ably put together, do not atone 
for the crime which he committed against literature in 
allowing the poet's autobiography to be destroyed. Be- 
tween 1840 and 1850 the most noteworthy biographies 
that appeared were Arnold's Life by Stanley, and the Life, 
Diary, and Letters of Mr. Wilberforce, edited by his sons. 
Diaries and letters, if published separately, are to be 
regarded as so much biographical or historical material. 
The Diary of Burton, a member of the Long Parliament, 
throws much light on the political history of the time. 
Those of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, in the reign of 
Charles II., take a more extensive range ; we derive from 
them much curious information as to the literature, art, 
manners, and morals of that age. The Diary and 
Letters of Madame D'Arblay, the authoress of Cecilia, 
are somewhat disappointing. We have full details of 
the private life of the court of George III., at which 
the lively Frances Burney figured in the capacity of a 
waiting-woman to the queen ; — but what a dismal court 
it was ! what an absence not only of gaiety and brilliancy, 
but even of ordinary refinement ! In collections of Letters, 
our literature is rather rich. The correspondence of 
Horace Walpole — that prince of letter- writers — with 
Sir Horace Mann, the Hon. Seymour Conway and others, 
the Letters of Cromwell, edited by Mr. Carlyle, and those 
of Cowper, by Southey, are among the chief contributions 

B B 4 



376 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

to this branch of literature. Pope rose in this, as in 
every other intellectual effort, to transcendent excellence ; 
his Letters to Swift and others are the most perfect episto- 
lary models that we possess. Chesterfield's once famous 
Letters to his Son are fast being forgotten. 

Theology : its Divisions. 

The general character of English theology, which is of 
course chiefly of Protestant authorship, stamps it as con- 
troversial and occasional. Except works of pure learning, 
its most vigorous and famous productions have all been 
either defensive or aggressive. They have also been occa- 
sional; that is, they have been designed to suit some 
immediate purpose, and have sprung out of some special 
conjuncture of circumstances — differing in this respect 
from most of the great works of Catholic theologians, at 
least in later times, which have usually either been the 
fruit of the accumulated study and meditation of years, or 
have grown out of systematic courses of lectures. 

We may best find a clue through the immense labyrinth 
of theological literature, by dividing the subject into 
several branches, and then examining the chief works 
written by English divines in each branch. These divisions 
may be thus stated: 1. Doctrinal Theology; 2. Moral 
Theology ; 3. Hermeneutics and Biblical Criticism ; 
4. Symbolical, 5. Patristic, 6. Eationalizing Theology; 
7. Pastoral Theology, or Homiletics ; 8. Devotional Theo- 
logy. To these it will be convenient to add, 9. Polemics, 
for the purpose of including a large class of works 
which draw successively upon all storehouses of theo- 
logical argument to meet the exigencies of controversy, and 
cannot, therefore, be fitly classed under any one of the 
preceding heads. 

Pure doctrinal discussions have not, on the whole, found 
much favour with English divines ; at least, unless we go 



THEOLOGY. 377 

back to the subtle doctor, Duns Scotus, Alexander Hales 
the Irrefragable, and other great British thinkers of the 
middle age. An exception, however, must be made to this 
remark in favour of the sacramental controversy, on which 
an immense number of tracts and treatises have been 
written. Upon other doctrinal topics the important books 
that exist may be soon enumerated. They are — Field's 
Book of the Church, Bull's Defensio Field Nixxence, Sher- 
lock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, written 
against the Socinians, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Wa- 
terland's Vindication of Chrisfs Divinity, in reply to the 
Arian, Dr. Clarke. Of these works, the first three date 
from the seventeenth, the last two from the eighteenth 
century. Dr. Eichard Field was a favourite with James I., 
who used to say of him, " Truly this is a field which the 
Lord hath blessed." In his Book of the Church, written in 
reply to Stapleton and other Catholic writers, after laying 
down from Scripture and the Fathers the notes of the true 
Church, he endeavoured to show that these notes had been 
obliterated from the Roman communion, and were all to 
be found in the Anglican. The discussion is mainly doc- 
trinal, and turns upon the interpretation of the terms 
unity, indefectibility, sanctity, &c, in which the doctrinal 
definition of the Church was expressed alike by the High 
Church Anglicans and their opponents. 

Bishop Bull's famous Defensio was primarily intended 
as a reply to Petavius, the learned author of the Rationa- 
rium Tempori'm, who had remarked that the language 
held by the Fathers of the early Church, prior to the Council 
of Nice, respecting the divinity of the Son, was often 
loose, ambiguous, and even, if the literal meaning of the 
words were pressed, heterodox.* This statement had been 
eagerly seized and made the most of by Arian and Soci- 

* With reference to these Fathers, the student should bear in mind the 
words addressed by St. Augustine to Theodore the Pelagian; "Vobis non- 
dum litigantibus, seeurius loquebantur." 



378 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

nian controversialists. In opposition both to them and to 
Petavius, Bull maintains in this work the perfect ortho- 
doxy, not only of the sentiments, but of the language of 
the Anti-Nicene Fathers, In doing so, Mr. Hallam con- 
siders that he is not always candid or convincing. Bull 
also wrote against the Calvinists a treatise on Justification 
— Harmonia Apostolica — in which he reconciles the 
texts from St. Paul and St. James on that doctrine. 

Sherlock's Vindication is not a work of very high 
ability, and it has been said that he lays himself open in 
it to the imputation of Tritheism. Waterland's book 
against Arianism, on the other hand, is a very masterly 
production, and extinguished that opinion in England. 
Waterland, who died in 1740, was the last great patristical 
scholar among Anglican divines.* But while he makes 
what use he can of the appeal to ancient testimonies, 
the influence exerted by Locke's Essay on all subsequent 
thinkers may be traced in the closer logic and more system- 
atic argumentation with which Waterland — as com- 
pared to the writers of the seventeenth century — deals 
with the reasonings of Clarke, Wall's treatise on Infant 
Baptism (1705) is a very fair and temperate as well as 
learned work, the object of which is, first, to prove what 
was the practice of the early Church with reference to 
baptism during the first four centuries, and then to urge 
upon the Baptists, or — as he calls them — Antipsedo- 
Baptists, various considerations touching the evils of 
disunion, and the ease with which they might, if so 
disposed, rejoin the Anglican communion. 

Moral Theology may be generally described as the ex- 
hibition of moral science from the religious point of view, 
and under theological conditions. Casuistry, one of its 
most important developements, is the application of theo- 
logy to the solution of difficult questions in morals. 

* See Dowling's Introduction to the Study of Ecclesiastical History. 



THEOLOGY. 379 

Under this head, Taylor's Buctor Dubitantium (which he 
thought the best, but most people regard as the worst, of 
his works), Perkins' Cases of Conscience, Sanderson's 
treatise Be Juramento, and Forbes' Theologia Moralis, 
are almost the only works- that can be named, and none of 
them is of great celebrity. 

In Hermeneutics and Biblical criticism, much greater 
things have been effected. Here we have to name 
Walton's Polyglott, consisting of synoptical versions of the 
Bible in nine languages, Lightfoot's Horce Hebraicce and 
Harmony of the Four Gospels, in which the writer's 
profound knowledge of the rabbinical literature enabled 
him to throw a flood of light on the various Jewish usages, 
rites, and prevailing ideas current in Palestine about the 
time of the Christian era, and referred to in the New 
Testament, as well as upon obscure points in the topo- 
graphy of the sacred text. Matthew Pool's Synopsis 
Criticorum is an immense compilation of the principal 
commentaries on the New Testament. In his bulky 
Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament, 
Hammond appears to be almost overpowered by the fullness 
and extent of his learning, and unable to wield and master 
it with the same readiness displayed by some of his con- 
temporaries. Leighton's Commentary on St. Peter is 
extolled by Coleridge with an unmeasured laudation, to 
which neither its learning nor its ability appear sufficiently 
to entitle it. 

Symbolical Theology treats of the Symbola or con- 
fessional formularies of different religious denominations. 
Moehler's Symbolik will immediately occur to the reader 
as a classic in this branch of divinity. The chief Anglican 
works of this nature are, Pearson's Exposition of the 
Apostles' 1 Creed (1659), and Burnet's work on the Thirty- 
nine Articles. 

But it was in Patristic divinity — that branch which 
examines, compares, and arranges the testimonies borne 



380 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

by the Fathers and Councils of the early Christian 
centuries, and more especially in Patristic learning, by 
which we chiefly mean the task of editing the works of the 
Fathers — that the Anglican divines gained their greatest 
distinctions. In this wide field all that can be done here 
— and even that may be of some use — is to indicate a 
few of the most important works. We may name, for 
instance, Fell's edition of Cyprian, and Bishop Potter's 
edition of Clemens Alexandrinus (a standard work, still 
unsuperseded), and Pearson's Vindicice Epistolarum S. 
Ignatii and Annates Cyprianici , and Beveridge's Pan- 
dectce Canonum SS. Apostolorum, a book of immense 
learning, and Dodwell's Dissertations on SS. Cyprian and 
Irenaaus. In ecclesiastical history and antiquities we have 
Usher's Annales, Cave's Primitive Christianity (1673) 
and Historia Literaria of ecclesiastical writers from the 
Christian era to the fourteenth century, and, above all, 
Bingham's Origines Ecclesiastiece, or Antiquities of the 
'Christian Church (1708-1722), a work of great research 
and eminent usefulness. In many of these books there is 
a controversial element, but in none of them does the 
writer propose to himself as his main object the establish- 
ment of a thesis or the refutation of an opponent ; they 
are not, therefore, to be classed among polemics. 

The seventeenth century is the great time for the 
Patristic writers. The rationalizing divines date, for the 
9 most part, from the eighteenth.* The former appealed to 
antiquity and authority in the discussion of disputed 
questions, the latter to reason and common sense. Stilling- 
fleet, in his Origines Source, or a Rational Account of the 
Grounds of Christian Faith[ 1663) directed against Hobbes 
and the atheists, and again in his Rational Account of the 
Grounds of Protestant Religion (1681), against the 
Catholics, took up the new line of controversy, and may 

* See above, p. 201. 



THEOLOGY. 381 

be regarded as individually anticipating the seculum 
rationale sticum. Leslie's Short Method with the Deists 
(1694), Butler's Analogy, Warburton's Divine Legation 
(1743), Berkeley's Alciphron — all of which formed 
portions of the great debate on Deism, — together with 
Lardner's Credibility of the Gospels, and Paley's Evidences, 
the materials for which he took from Lardner, are the 
chief remaining works to be cited under this head. 

In Pastoral Theology, or Homiletics, the number of 
published volumes of sermons almost defies computation. 
Among the principal names are — in the seventeenth 
century, Donne, Andrews, Bramhall, Taylor, Cosin, Ham- 
mond, Beveridge, South, and Tillotson; — in the eighteenth, 
Butler, Clarke, Wesley, and Whitfield; — in the nineteenth, 
Eobert Hall, Eowland Hill, Chalmers, Arnold, Hare, &c. 

In Devotional Theology, though the list is, on the whole,, 
a meagre one, some remarkable books have to be named. 
Such are William Law's Serious Call to a Holy Life, the 
book which made so great an impression on Johnson ; 
Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest and Call to the Uncon- 
verted, The Whole Duty of Man, a work of unknown 
authorship, but precious in the sight of our forefathers 
a hundred and fifty years ago, and spoken of in that sense 
in the Spectator-, lastly, Taylor's moving and eloquent 
treatises Of Holy Living and Of Holy Dying. An extract 
from the latter will enable the reader to form some 
idea of Taylor's rich and gorgeous style, of the power 
of his imagination, and the general fulness of his mind. 
It is upon the shortness of life, and the multitudinous 
warnings with which it teems, all telling us to prepare to 
die: — 

" All the succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the 
varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents 
in the world, and every contingency to every man and to every 
creature, doth preach our funeral sermon, and calls us to look and 
see how the old sexton, Time, throws up the earth, and digs a grave 



382 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

where we must lay our sins or our sorrows, and sow our bodies, till 
they rise again in a fair or an intolerable eternity. Every revolu- 
tion which the sun makes about the world divides between life and 
death, and death possesses both those portions by the next morrow ; 
and we are dead to all those months which we have already 
lived, and we shall never live them over again, and still God 
makes little periods of our age. First we change our world, when 
we come from the womb to feel the warmth of the sun ; then we 
sleep and enter into the image of death, in which state we are .un- 
concerned in all the changes of the world ; and if our mothers or 
our nurses die, or a wild-boar destroy our vineyards, or our king 
be sick, we regard it not, but, during that state, are as disin- 
terested as if our eyes were closed with the clay that weeps in 
the bowels of the earth. At the end of seven years our teeth fall 
and die before us, representing a formal prologue to the tragedy, 
and still every seven years it is odds but we shall finish the last 
scene ; and when nature, or chance, or vice, takes our body in 
pieces, weakening some parts and loosing jthers, we taste the 
grave and the solemnities of our own funeral, first, in those parts 
that ministered to vice, and, next, in them that served for orna- 
ment ; and in a short time, even they that served for necessity 
become useless and entangled, like the wheels of a broken clock. 
Baldness is but a dressing to our funerals, the proper ornament 
of mourning, and of a person entered very far into the regions and 
possession of death ; and we have many more of the same sig- 
nification — grey hairs, rotten teeth, dim eyes, trembling joints, 
short breath, stiff limbs, wrinkled skin, short memory, decayed 
appetite. Every day's necessity calls for a reparation of that 
portion which Death fed on all night when we lay in his lap, and 
slept in his outer chambers. The very spirits of a man prey 
upon his daily portion of bread and flesh, and every meal is a 
rescue from one death, and lays up for another ; and while we 
think a thought we die, and the clock strikes, and reckons on our 
portion of eternity : we form our words with the breath of our 
nostrils — we have the less to live upon for every word we 
speak. 

" Thus nature calls us to meditate of death by those things which 
are the instruments of acting it ; and God, by all the variety of 
His providence, makes us see death everywhere, in all variety of 



THEOLOGY. 383 

circumstances, and dressed up for all the fancies and the expecta- 
tion of every single person. Nature hath given us one harvest 
every year, but death hath two : and the spring and the autumn 
send throngs of men and women to charnel-houses ; and all the 
summer long men are recovering from their evils of the spring, 
till the dog-days come, and then the Sirian star makes the summer 
deadly ; and the fruits of autumn are laid up for all the year's 
provision, and the man that gathers them eats and surfeits, and 
dies and needs them not, and himself is laid up for eternity ; and 
he that escapes till winter only stays for another opportunity, 
which the distempers of that quarter minister to him with great 
variety. Thus death reigns in all the portions of our time. The 
autumn with its fruits provides disorders for us, and the winter's 
cold turns them into sharp diseases, and the spring brings flowers 
to strew our hearse, and the summer gives green turf and brambles 
to bind upon our graves." 

Of works of which the entire form and end are contro- 
versial, the quantity is immense. Hooker's Ecclesiastical 
Polity, with the exception of the first book, which we may 
range with Hallam among contributions to moral and 
political science, is a vindication qf the liturgy and cere- 
monies of the Church of England, and of her right to 
impose them, against the attacks of the Puritans. Laud's 
Conference with Fisher, Chillingworth's Religion of Pro- 
testants, Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, about a dozen 
treatises, large and small, by Baxter, and Barrow On the 
Supremacy, are some of the most popular productions 
of this class. 

The circumstances in which England and Ireland have 
been placed since English literature emerged from its 
rude and semi-barbarous beginnings easily explain the 
comparative absence of a Catholic theological literature. 
Most of the existing works are, as might have been ex- 
pected, controversial. The writings of Parsons and Allen, 
Stapleton's ponderous tomes, (Mother's works, Milner's End 
of Controversy, and some very able tracts by Dr. Doyle, 
mark — if we exclude works by living authors, the 



3S4 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Wisemans and Newmans of our own day — some of the 
most important steps and phases of the great controversy. 
One or two works of great learning might be named, such 
as Alford's Annates Britannici, or of patient research, as 
Dodd's Church History, and Alban Butler's Lives of the 
Fathers, Martyrs, and other principal Saints, &c. 



Philosophy: its Divisions; Political Science; Essays; 
Criticism. 

With a brief survey of what English literature has pro- 
duced under this head, our present task will be concluded. 

The term philosophy, as has been already explained, is 
here used in a very wide and loose sense, and applied to all 
works of thought and theory. We commence, however, 
with the consideration of philosophical works, strictly so 
called, in examining which we shall endeavour to observe 
some kind of natural and rational order. 

Logic is usually regarded as the fore-court of philo- 
sophy, because it is the science which investigates the 
form of the reasoning principle, philosophy's indispen- 
sable instrument, and establishes the conditions of its 
effective use. The main achievements of English thinkers 
in this department are, Bacon's Novum Organum, 
Whately's Elements of Logic, Mill's System of Logic, 
and Sir William Hamilton's Lectures. 

Lord Bacon — and in this Mr. Mill has followed him 
— treated Logic less as a formal science than as a means 
to an ulterior end, that end being the successful investi- 
gation of Nature. The rules which the logic of the schools 
had established for deductive reasoning, though indispu- 
table, were, in Bacon's view, comparatively worthless, 
because they could not guide the mind in its search after 
physical laws. They were an instrument for testing the 
soundness of the knowledge which we had, or thought we 



PHILOSOPHY. 385 

had already, not an instrument facilitating for us the 
acquisition of new knowledge. It was for this latter 
purpose that Bacon devised, in the Novum Organum, the 
rules of his new inductive logic. For what he demanded 
from the science was — not a solution of the problem, 
(i given certain premisses, to deduce a logical conclusion," 
but an analysis of the conditions under which true pre- 
misses or propositions, relative to phenomena, might be 
formed. The human mind being once turned into the 
track of the investigation of nature, it was obvious that, to 
prevent waste of labour and rash generalisation, the for- 
mation of such a logic was indispensable. Mr. Mill in his 
System of Logic, and Sir John Herschel in his admirable 
Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, have done 
much to complete the Baconian design. 

Whately and Hamilton, on the other hand, have treated 
logic rather upon its own merits as a formal science, than 
as a mere instrument of enquiry. Archbishop Whately's 
Elements of Logic exhibit, with beautiful precision of state- 
ment and felicity of illustration, the Aristotelian logic in 
an English dress. Sir W. Hamilton, having in view the 
cultivation of mental rather than of physical science, 
subjected the preliminary processes of logic, such as gene- 
ralisation and predication, to a new and very rigorous 
analysis, and has in many respects presented the technical 
parts of the science under a new light. 

The logical weapon being brightened and made ready for 
action, the question next occurs, on what subject-matter 
it is to be employed. The school of physicists employ it 
at once in the investigation of nature; and the various 
hypotheses, theories, or laws of physical science, together 
with natural history and other accumulations of facts 
gained by observation and experiment, are the collective 
result. With such labours the student of literature has 
nothing to do. But for those who devote themselves to 
philosophy, in the ancient acceptation of the term, as to 

c c 



386 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

that study which will lead them to wisdom, the next step, 
after perfecting the logical weapon, is psychology, or the 
study of the human mind. And as this study divides 
itself into two main branches, that of the moral affections 
and sentiments, and that of the intellectual faculties, we 
have a moral and an intellectual philosophy corresponding. 
The first branch has been cultivated among ourselves by 
Butler, Adam Smith, Paley, Hume, Hutcheson, and many 
others. Butler's admirable Sermons, preached at the 
Eolls chapel, are the most profound and important contri- 
butions to Moral Philosophy that our literature possesses. 
Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Hume's 
Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, are also 
celebrated works. Of these, and of the writings of the other 
English moralists, the reader will find an account in Sir 
James Mackintosh's Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy. 
Locke's famous Essay on the Human Understanding, 
which belongs to that branch of psychology which investi- 
gates the intellectual faculties, holds a distinguished place, 
not only in English but in universal literature. However, 
Locke examines many other besides purely psychological 
questions. The Scotch school of philosophers pushed this 
class of researches very far. Eeid, Beattie, Dugald Stewart, 
and Brown carefully studied the intellect, and described 
its various powers. Eeid, annoyed and scandalized at the 
scepticism of Hume, propounded the theory of instincts, 
and described a great number of intellectual judgements, 
which Locke and his followers had classed among acquired 
notions, as original and instinctive. He — but still more 
Beattie — carried this theory to the length of extrava- 
gance, and exposed himself to the ridicule of Priestley in 
his Remarks on Dr. Reid's Inquiry. Hartley's work On 
Man is to a large extent psychological. Lastly, Sir W. 
Hamilton's Lectures contain probably a more exhaustive 
analysis of the intellectual processes and powers than the 
work of any other English writer. 



PHILOSOPHY. 387 

After distinguishing and describing the powers of the 
human mind, Philosophy in every past age has been ac- 
customed to proceed to those further enquiries which are 
termed metaphysical, and to ask itself — whence did this 
complex being which I have just examined take its origin, 
and what is its destination ? in what relations does this 
finite stand to infinite intelligence ? can we know anything 
of the invisible and super-sensual world that surrounds 
us ? Glorious and elevating speculations ! which it has 
become the fashion of modern thinkers to decry as useless, 
but which for a certain class of minds — and those not 
of the meanest capacity — will possess to the end of time 
an invincible attraction. We can merely enumerate the 
most important among the works of English metaphy- 
sicians* Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe 
has for its general object to prove against Hobbes and the 
atheists the existence and the goodness of God. Henry 
More, the most eminent among the school known as the 
Platonizing divines of the seventeenth century, is the 
author of The Mystery of Godliness, An Antidote against 
Atheism, Enchiridion Metaphysicum,, and other works, 
in which, with much that is noble and lofty, we remark 
too manifest a readiness to put faith, upon insufficient 
evidence, in any stories that tended to establish the 
presence of a mystical and supernatural element in human 
affairs. Parts of Locke's Essay, particularly the first book, 
which discusses the question whether any of our ideas are 
innate, and decides it in the negative, are metaphysical. 
Berkeley's Hylasand Philonous, and Principles of Human 
Knowledge are the treatises in which his ideal philosophy is 
expounded. As this philosophy has been much misunder- 
stood, and Eeid thought that he had said a clever thing 
when he had advised Berkeley to test its truth, and the 
reality of matter, by knocking his head against a post, 
it may serve a good purpose to extract the following 

c c 2 



388 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

remarks from Lewes's Biographical History of Philo- 
sophy : — 

" When Berkeley denied the existence of matter, he meant by 
1 matter ' that unknown substratum, the existence of which Locke 
had declared to be a necessary inference from our knowledge of 
qualities, but the nature of which must ever be altogether hidden 
from us. Philosophers had assumed the existence of Substance, 
i. e. of a noumenon lying underneath all phenomena — a substra- 
tum supporting all qualities — a something in which all accidents 
inhere. This unknown substance Berkeley rejects. It is a mere 
abstraction, he says. If it is unknown, unknowable,, it is a fig- 
ment, and I will none of it ; for it is a figment worse than useless ; 
it is pernicious, as the basis of all atheism. If, by matter you 
understand that which is seen, felt, tasted, and touched, then I 
say matter exists ; I am as firm a believer in its existence as any 
one can be, and herein I agree with the vulgar. If, on the con- 
trary, you understand by matter that occult substratum which is 
not seen, not felt, not tasted, and not touched — that of which the 
senses do not, cannot, inform you — then I say I believe not in 
the existence of matter, and herein I differ from the philosophers 
and agree with the vulgar." 

In support of this view, Berkeley's own words are pre- 
sently quoted : — 

"I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we 
can apprehend either by sensation or reflection. That the things 
I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, 
I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence I 
deny is that which philosophers call Matter, or corporeal sub- 
stance. And in doing this there is no damage done to the rest of 
mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it." 

Hume, in his Enquiry concerning Human Understand- 
ing, begins with some valuable definitions, which may 
be considered to constitute an improvement, so far as they 
go, on the terminology of Locke, but ends with proposing 
u sceptical doubts," as applicable to every possible philoso- 



PHILOSOPHY. 389 

phical proposition, which the mind can entertain. After 
Hume, the celebrated Kant in Grermany took up the meta- 
physical debate, and produced his Kritik der Reinen Ver- 
nunft* a work which makes an epoch in philosophy. Among 
ourselves Hume was feebly answered, upon obvious com- 
mon-sense grounds, by Eeid and his followers ; but they 
were rather pscyhologists than metaphysicians. Coleridge, 
whose genius pre-eminently fitted him to excel in meta- 
physics, has left, indeed, much that is of the highest value, 
but in a discontinuous sketchy condition, and with large 
desiderata. The Aids to Reflection is the work which 
contains more of his mind upon the deepest questions than 
any other. The Friend, and the Literary Remains, while 
they illustrate to a great extent his metaphysical tenets, 
belong in form rather to the department of Essays. 



Political Science : Filmer, Hobbes, Milton, Burke. 

Political science, as might have been expected in a 
country with such an eventful political histor}^, owes much 
to English thinkers. The conservative and absolutist side 
has been ably and warmly argued, but on the whole the 
palm undoubtedly rests with the writers on the liberal and 
constitutional side. Sir Eobert Filmer and the phi- 
losopher Hobbes, upon widely different grounds, wrote in 
support of arbitrary power. In his Patriarcha, published 
in 1680, but written long before, Filmer maintained, 
not only against Milton and Grotius, but also against St. 
Thomas and Bellarmine, that men were not born free, but 
slaves ; and that monarchs reigned with a patriarchal, 
absolute, and unquestionable right, derived, like that of 
Adam over his own household, immediately from Grod. 
Hobbes was an absolutist on quite other grounds. He 
believed in no divine right of kings ; but be had the 

* Critique of Pure Keason. 
C c 3 



390 ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 

lowest possible opinion of subjects, that is, of mankind in 
general, and thought that to place power in the hands of 
the masses was the sure way to bring in anarchy. He was 
therefore in favour of a strong central government, which 
he would not allow to be thwarted in its task of repression 
by the licensed meddling of the persons, whether acting 
directly or by representation, who were subjected to it, 
Hobbes' political system is unfolded in several of his 
works, particularly the Be Give (1642), the Be Gorpore 
Politico (1650), and the Leviathan (1651). 

On the other side occur the names of Milton, Algernon 
Sydney, Harington, and Locke in the seventeenth century, 
and Burke, Grodwin, and Payne, in the eighteenth ; all of 
whom were in favour of liberal principles of government, 
however wide the gulf, in spirit and practical aims, which 
separated the republican Sydney from the constitutionalist 
Locke, or the author of the Rights of Man from the up- 
holder of the saeredness of prescription. Milton's Areo- 
pagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing, 
though in form a mere pamphlet, is so full of weighty 
thoughts, which have since been adopted by the reason of 
civilised Europe, that we prefer to consider it as a contri- 
bution to political science. It is an argument for the 
freedom of the press, and is perhaps the most eloquent — 
certainly one of the least rugged — among the prose 
works of Milton. The following is one of the most im- 
portant passages. After speaking of the glorious spectacle 
of a great nation "renewing her mighty youth," and 
producing in boundless profusion the richest fruits of 
awakened intelligence, he proceeds : — 

11 What should ye do then ? Should ye suppress all this flowery 
crop of knowledge, and new light sprung up and yet springing 
daily in this city ? Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty en- 
grossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when 
we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their 



PHILOSOPHY. 391 

bushel ? * Believe it, lords and commons ! they who counsel ye 
to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves ; 
and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know the imme- 
diate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot 
be assigned a truer than your own mild, and free, and humane 
government ; it is the liberty, lords and commons, which your 
own valorous and happy counsels have purchased us ; liberty 
which is the nurse of all great wits ; this is that which hath 
rarified and enlightened our spirits like the influence of heaven ; 
this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our 
apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now 
less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, 
unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, 
less the founders, of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant 
again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us ; but you then 
must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, 
and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That 
our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to 
the research and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the 
issue of your own virtue propagated in us ; ye cannot suppress 
that, unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that 
fathers may dispatch at will their own children. . . . Give 
me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to 
conscience, above all other liberties." 

Harington's Oceana has been already noticed.f Locke's 
two Treatises on Government were written as a reply to 
the Patriarcha, and embody the famous doctrine of an 
"original compact" between prince and people. An 
interesting summary of them may be found in Hallam's 
Literature of Europe. Among Burke's political writings, 
those which contain the clearest and fullest statement of 
his political philosophy are the Reflections on the French 
Revolution, and the Appeal from the Ne%v to the Old 
Wlvigs. His principles were constitutional and progressive, 

* The censors of books are compared to those who engross or forestall all 
the corn in the market, and thus create an artificial scarcity, 
f See p. 151. 

c c 4 



392 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

but anti-revolutionary. The Appeal &c. was occasioned 
by some slighting notice taken in Parliament of the 
Reflections, as the work of a renegade Whig. Burke 
endeavours to show that the new Whigs have changed 
their principles, and not he ; that from constitutionalists 
they have become revolutionists. The following striking 
passage occurs near the end of the treatise : — 

" Place, for instance, before your eyes such a man as Montes- 
quieu. Think of a genius not born in every country, or every 
time ; a man gifted by nature with a penetrating aquiline eye ; 
with a judgement prepared with the most extensive erudition ; 
with an herculean robustness of mind, and nerves not to be 
broken with labour ; a man who could spend twenty years in one 
pursuit. Think of a man, like the universal patriarch in Milton 
(who had drawn up before him in prophetic vision the whole 
series of the generations which were to issue from his loins), a 
man capable of placing in review, after having brought together 
from the east, the west, the north, and the south, from the 
coarseness of the rudest barbarism to the most refined and subtle 
civilisation, all the schemes of government which had ever pre- 
vailed amongst mankind, weighing, measuring, collating, and 
comparing them all, joining fact with theory, and calling into 
council, upon all this infinite assemblage of things, all the specu- 
lations which have fatigued the understandings of profound 
reasoners in all times ! — Let us then consider that all these were 
but so many preparatory steps to qualify a man — and such a 
man — tinctured with no national prejudice, with no domestic 
affection, to admire, and to hold out to the admiration of mankind, 
the constitution of England ! And shall we Englishmen revoke 
to such a suit ? Shall we, when so much more than he has pro- 
duced remains still to be understood and admired, instead of 
keeping ourselves in the schools of real science, choose for our 
teachers men incapable of being taught ; whose only claim to 
know is, that they have never doubted ; from -whom we can 
learn nothing but their own indocility ; who would teach us to 
scorn what in the silence of our hearts we ought to adore ? " 

In the Reflections, which we have not space to examine 



PHILOSOPHY. 393 

in detail, occurs the famous passage on Marie Antoinette 
and the " age of chivalry." 

Essays. 

An essay, as its name implies, is an endeavour, within 
definite limits of time and subject, to attain to truth. It 
is the elucidation by thought of some one single topic, of 
which the mind had previously possessed an indistinct 
notion. The essay-writer stands at the opposite pole of 
thought to the system-monger ; the first is ever analysing 
and separating, the second grouping and generalising. 
This style of writing, speaking generally, was unknown to 
the middle ages ; it arose in the sixteenth century. Nor 
is the explanation obscure, or far to seek. The general 
tendency of thought in the middle ages was to totality ; to 
regard philosophy as one whole, truth as one, religion 
as one, nature as one. One of the typical books of the 
middle ages — the Liber Sententiarum — is a complete 
theology, corpus Theologian ; it traverses the entire field. 
But the general tendency of thought in modern times has 
been to separation and subdivision ; to break up wholes, 
to mistrust generalisations ; — to examine the parts seve- 
rally and attain to a perfect knowledge of each individual 
part, in the hope of ultimately combining the knowledge 
of particulars into a sound theory of the whole. The 
same tendency of mind which has in the last three 
centuries produced and rendered popular so many volumes 
of essays and detached cogitations in literature, has in the 
scientific world resulted in the innumerable monographs, 
reports, and papers, by which each enquirer into nature, 
in his own special department, contributes to the already 
enormous stock of particular knowledge. 

Essays do not include political tracts or pamphlets, 
from which we may easily distinguish them by considering 
the difference in the ends proposed. The end of an essay 



394 ENGLISH LITEKATUEE. 

is knowledge; the end of a political tract or pamphlet, 
action. Logic appertains to the former, rhetoric to the 
latter. The essay writer has . answered his purpose if he 
presents to us a new and clearer view of the subject which 
he handles, and leads us to think upon it. The political 
writer has answered his purpose if, whatever the view 
may be which he wishes to enforce, his arguments, whether 
they be sound or specious, tend to arouse his readers to 
action in the direction pointed out. 

The heterogeneous character of the subjects of essays 
makes it useless, if not impossible, to classify them. An 
essay may be written about anything whatever which an 
attentive thinker can place in a new light, or form a 
plausible theory about ; there would therefore be no end 
to the division and subdivision. We shall merely notice 
some of the most remarkable collections of essays in our 
literature. Bacon's essays, concerning which some par- 
ticulars were noted at page 96, are the earliest in the 
series. As a specimen, we give a passage from the essay 
Of Plantations, which must have been one of the latest 
composed, for it is evident from it that the colony of Vir- 
ginia (founded in 1605) had then been in existence for 
several years : — 

"Plantations are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical 
works. When the world was young, it begat more children ; but 
now it is old, it begets fewer ; for I may justly account new 
plantations to be the children of former kingdoms. I like a 
plantation in a pure soil ; that is, where people are not displanted, 
to the end to plant in others. For else it is rather an extirpation 
than a plantation. Planting of countries is like planting of 
woods ; for you must make account to lose almost twenty years' 
profit, and expect your recompense in the end. For the prin- 
cipal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations, 
hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. 
It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as may stand 
with the good of the plantations, but no farther. It is a shame- 



PHILOSOPHY. 395 

ful and unblessed thing, to take the scum of people, and wicked 
condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant. And 
not only so, but it spoileth the plantation, for they will ever live 
like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, 
and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over 

to their coimtry, to the discredit of the plantation 

Consider, likewise, what commodities the soil, where the planta- 
tion is, doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to de- 
fray the charge of the plantation ; so it be not, as was said, to the 
untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with 
tobacco in Virginia. Wood commonly aboundeth but too much ; 
and therefore timber is fit to be one. If there be iron ore, and 
streams whereupon to set the mills ; iron is a brave commodity 

where wood aboundeth For government, let it 

be in the hands of one, .assisted with some counsel ; and let them 
have commission to execute martial laws, with some limitation. 
And above all, let men make that profit of being in the wilder- 
ness, as they have God always, and His service, before their eyes. 

If you plant where savages are, do not only 

entertain them with trifles and gingles ; but use them justly and 
graciously, with sufficient guard, nevertheless; and do not win 
their favour by helping them to invade their enemies, but for 
their defence it is not amiss. And send oft of them over to the 
country that plants, that they may see a better condition than 
their own, and commend it when they return." 

Felltham's Resolves, Bishop Hall's Centuries of Medita- 
tions and Votvs, and Browne's Religio Medici, have all the 
character of essays : Hume's Essays, Moral, Political, and 
Literary, published in 1742 and 1752, show a remarkable 
union of practical shrewdness, with power of close and 
searching thought. In our own age, John Foster's Essays 
in a Series of Letters to a Friend, have obtained a high 
reputation. They are upon ethical subjects, written in a 
plain strong style, and profoundly reasoned. Lord 
Macaulay's Essays, most of which were originally contri- 
buted to the Edinburgli Eeview, would generally fall, 
according to the terminology that we have adopted, under 



396 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the head of Criticism; and the same remark applies to 

Jeffrey's Essays. 

Criticism. 

Criticism maybe, 1. philosophical, 2. literary, 3. artistic. 
Of the first kind, Bacon's Advancement of Learning is a 
splendid instance. After having, in the first book, expa- 
tiated in that beautiful language, not more thoughtful than 
it is imaginative, which he could command at pleasure, 
upon the dignity and utility of learning, he proceeds in 
the second part to consider what are the principal works 
or acts of merit which tend to promote learning. These, he 
decides, are conversant with, 1. the places of learning; 2. 
the books or instruments of learning ; 3. the persons of the 
learned. He then passes in review the chief defects observ- 
able in the existing arrangements for the promotion of learn- 
ing. One of these is, that " there hath not been, or very 
rarely been, any public designation of writers or enquirers 
concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to 
have been already sufficiently laboured or undertaken ; unto 
which point it is an inducement to enter into a view and 
examination what parts of learning have been prosecuted, 
and what omitted ; for the opinion of plenty is among the 
causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a 
show rather of superfluity than lack; which surcharge 
nevertheless is not to be remedied by making no more 
books, but by making more good books, which, as the 
serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of the en- 
chanters." The object of the work, therefore, is to insti- 
tute a critical survey of the entire field of learning, with 
a view, partly to guide public patronage, partly to stimu- 
late voluntary endeavours to cultivate the waste p]aces in- 
dicated. And this survey he proceeds to make, dividing 
all learning into three branches — history, philosophy, and 
poetry, and noting what has been done, what overlooked, 
in each. 



PHILOSOPHY. 397 

2. In the department of literary criticism, some admir- 
able works have to be named. The earliest and one of the 
best among these is Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie 
(mentioned at page 98), from which we must find room for 
an extract, describing the invigorating moral effects of 
poetry : — 

"Now, therein, of all sciences (I speak still of human, and ac- 
cording to the human conceit) is our poet the monarch. For he 
doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into 
the way, as will entice any man to enter into it : nay he doth, 
as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very 
first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may 
long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, 
which must blur the margin with interpretations, and load the 
memory with doubtfulness, but he cometh to you with words 
set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared 
for, the well-enchanting skill of music ; and with a tale, forsooth, 
he cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from 
play, and old men from the chimney-corner ; and, pretending no 
more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to 
virtue ; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome 
things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste : 
which, if one should begin to tell them the nature of the aloes or 
rhubarbarum they should receive, would sooner take their physic at 
their ears than at their mouth : so is it in men ; (most of whom are 
childish in the best things till they be cradled in their graves ;) 
glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, 
./Eneas : and hearing them, must needs hear the right description 
of wisdom, valour, and justice : which if they had been barely 
(that is to say, philosophically) set out, they would swear they be 
brought to school again. That imitation whereof poetry is, hath 
the most conveniency to nature of all other : in so much that, as 
Aristotle saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as 
cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made, in poetical imitation, 
delightful. Truly, I have known men, that even with reading 
Amadis de Gaul, which, God knoweth, wanteth much of a perfect 
poesie, have found their hearts moved to the exercise of courtesy, 



398 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

liberality, and specially courage. Who readeth iEneas carrying 
old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune to 
perform so excellent an act ? Whom do not those words of 
Turnus move (the tale of Turnus having planted his image in the 
imagination) — 

'fugientem lisec terra videbit? 
Usque adeone mori miserum est? '" 

Grascoyne, Puttenham, and Webbe, who all wrote critical 
treatises on poetry and metre, belong also to the six- 
teenth century. Dryden's famous Essay on Dramatic 
Poetry, vindicating the use of rhyme in drama, appeared 
in 1667. The critical passages which occur in Johnson's 
Lives of the Poets appear to be in the main just and sound. 
Shakspearian criticism has given rise to an entire library 
of its own. Fielding led the way, by the admiring yet 
discerning notices of the great dramatist which he intro- 
duced in his Tom Jones. The prefaces and notes of Pope 
and Johnson followed ; at a later date appeared Hazlitt's 
Characters, and the critical notices in Coleridge's Literary 
Remains. 

But the greatest achievement of literary criticism that 
we can point to is Hallam's Literature of Europe in the 
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. This is 
a book of which the sagacity and the calmness are well 
matched with the profound erudition, A certain coldness 
or dryness of tone is often noticeable, which seems not to 
be wondered at ; for it is not easy to imagine that the man 
who spent so large a portion of his moral existence in 
surveying the labours and mastering the thoughts of men 
of the utmost diversity of aspiration and opinion, could 
have felt a very warm personal interest in any of their 
systems. 

Among works on poetical criticism, we can scarcely err 
in assigning a high and permanent place to Mr. Thackeray's 
Lectures on the English Humorists. 



PHILOSOPHY. 399 

3. In artistic criticism, the same remark might be 
hazarded as to Mr. Ruskin's Modem Painters and Stones of 
Venice. Nothing else of much importance can be named, 
except Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting and Sir 
Joshua Reynolds's Lectures. 



APPENDIX. 



D D 



APPENDIX. 



ON ENGLISH METEES. 

There exists no work of any authority, so far as I am aware, 
upon the metres used by our poets, except Mr. Guest's His- 
tory of English Rhythms, which is too long and too intricate for 
general use. In the absence then of better guidance, the fol- 
lowing description and classification of English metres may be 
of use to students. 

Metre is the arrangement into verse of definite measures of 
sounds, definitely accented. Thus the hexameter is the arrange- 
ment in lines of six equivalent quantities of sound, called feet, 
each of which consists, or has the value, of two long syllables, 
and is accented on the first syllable. The heroic metre, when 
strictly regular, is the arrangement in rhymed couplets of five 
feet, each foot being equivalent to an iambus (a short and a long 
syllable), and accented on the last syllable. In practice, spondees 
and trochees are often introduced, the accent is often laid on the 
first syllable of a foot, and there are frequently not more than 
four, sometimes not more than three, accents in a line. 

Rhyme is the regular recurrence in metre of similar sounds. 
There are four principal kinds ; the perfect, the alliterative, the 
assonantal, and the consonantal. In the perfect rhyme, the 
rhyming syllables correspond throughout ; in other words, they 
are identical. It is common in French poetry, but rare in 
English, e. g. : — 

Selon divers besoins, il est une science 

D'etendre les liens de notre conscience. — Molieke. 

D D 2 



404 APPENDIX. 

The alliterative rhyme is the correspondence of the initial con- 
sonants of the rhyming syllables. This is the ordinary rhythm 
of the Anglo-Saxon, and also of the Scandinavian poetry, e. g. : — 

/ . / / / 

Eadward kinge, engla hlaford 
/ / / / 

Sende sothfoeste sawle to criste 

/ / / / 

On godes wsera, gast haligne * 

These lines, which represent the most common of Anglo-Saxon 
rhythms, have each four accents, and either three or two rhyming 
syllables, which are always accented. When the rhyming syl- 
lables begin with vowels, these vowels are usually different, 
though not always. 

The assonantal rhyme is the correspondence of the vowels 
merely in the rhyming syllables. It is of two kinds : in the first 
the vowel ends the syllable ; in the second, it is followed by a 
consonant, or a consonant and vowel. The first kind occurs 
continually in English poetry ; the second, never ; but it is a 
favourite rhyme with the Spanish poets. Examples : — 

(1) If she seem not such to me, 

What care I how good she be? 
(2) Ferid los, eavalleros, por amor de caridad ; 

Yo soy Buy Diaz el Cid, Campeador de Bibar.f — * 

Ballad of the Cid. 

The consonantal rhyme is the ordinary rhyme of English 
poetry ; it is the correspondence of the vowel and the final conso- 
nant or consonants in the rhyming syllables. Example : — 

Golden boys and girls all must, 
Like chimney sweepers, come to dust. 

All that has been said hitherto applies only to single rhymes, 
the masculine rhyme of the Italians. The double, or feminine 
rhyme, which is the ordinary rhyme of Italian poetry, is also 



* From Guest's Bhythms, ii. 70. His translation is, 
King Edward, lord of the Engle, 
Sent his righteous soul to Christ, 
(In God's promise trusting) a spirit holy, 

f " Smite them, knights, for the love of charity; 

I am Kuy Diaz the Cid, champion of Bivar." 



ENGLISH METRES. 405 

common with us. The first syllables form always a consonantal 
or assonantal (No. 1.) rhyme, the second syllables a perfect rhyme. 
Examples; — 

Ecco da mille voei \mita,77ien-te, 

Gerusalemme salutar si scn-te. — Tasso. Geru. Liber. 

And join with thee calm Peace and Qui-et, 

Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth di-et. 

In the triple rhyme, called sdrucciola by the Italians, the first 
syllables follow the same rule as in the double rhyme ; the 
second and third must be, in English poetry at least, perfect 
rhymes. Example : — 

Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glo-ri-ous, 
O'er all the ills of life \icto-ri-oas. 

Before proceeding further, it is necessary to enumerate the 
principal kinds of feet used in English poetry. A long syllable 
is represented by the mark ("), a short syllable by the mark ( w ).* 
The feet most used are, 

The spondee ( ) 

The iambus ( w -) 

The trochee (r w ) 

The dactyl (- - ~) 

The anapaest ( v ^ ~) 

The amphiambus j (^ " v ) 

English metres may be divided into, 1. the unrhymed ; 
2. the rhymed. The first, in which a comparatively small por- 

* In English poetry, length or quantity depends almost entirely upon 
accent. Accented syllables are long, unaccented short. In Greek and 
Latin poetry, as is well known, quantity is something intrinsic in each 
syllable, and depends upon the nature of the vowel and the consonant or 
consonants following it. Our ears, trained to mark the accents only, take 
little notice of this kind of quantity ; yet those poets who utterly neglect it, 
are felt to write roughly and unmelodiously, though most of us could not 
explain distinctly the grounds of the feeling. A Roman ear could not have 

endured such a dactyl as far in the, because to it the in would be made 
irredeemably long by position. This we scarcely notice ; but even an Eng- 
lish ear would stumble at such a dactyl, as e. g., far midst the. 

f Using the analogy of the Homeric SeVas h^cpiKvireWov I have, for the 
sake of convenience, substituted this term for the more usual "amphibrachys," 
from which it is impossible to form an adjective. 



40G APPENDIX. 

tion of our poetry is written, may be quickly disposed of. They 
are of three kinds, hexameters, blank verse, and choral metres. 
The general rule governing the formation of English hexameters 
has been already given ; it need only be added that the last or 
sixth foot must always be a spondee, and the fifth ordinarily a 
dactyl, though a spondee is also admissible. Example: — 

Felt she in | myriad [ springs her | sources | far in the | mountains [ 
Stirring, collecting, | heaving, up [rising, | forth out- 1 flowing. [ — Clotjgh. 
Blank verse is a continuous metre, consisting, in its most perfect 
form, of lines containing five iambuses, each iambus being accented 
on the last syllable. In other words, it is a decasyllabic metre, 
having the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables ac- 
cented. We have not space to discuss here all the variations from 
this form, which are numerous ; but the student will find the 
subject ably handled in Johnson's papers in the Rambler on 
Milton's versification. The following examples illustrate the 
principal variations, which affect, 1. the position of their accents ; 
2. their number ; 3. the termination of the fine: — 

/■/'/./ / 

When down | along | by plea|sant Tem|pe's stream | (1) 

Left for | repen|tance, none | for par j don left | (2) 

/ / y /, 

In-fi-|nite wrath, | and in|fi-nite [ despair |) 

/ / / / \ (3) 

How o-|vercome [ this dire | ca-lam-|ity |) 

To the | last syl-|lable of | recor-|ded time | (4) 

/ / / 

Tomor-|row and | tonior|row and j tomor-|row (5) 
/ / / / / 

Who can | be wise, | amazed, ] temperate, | and fu-|ri-ous (6) 

In (1), a strictly regular line, the accents are five in number, 
and occupy their normal positions. In (2) they are still five, but 
the first syllable is accented instead of the second. In each of the 
two examples of (3) there are but four accents, differently placed 
in each line. In (4) there are but three accents. In (5) there is 
one, and in (6) two redundant syllables. 

In most English decasyllabic verse, whether blank or rhymed, 
the line with four accents predominates. It is often possible to 
find a dozen lines in succession so accented in Shakspeare and 
Milton. But in Pope's decasyllabics, as might be expected from 
so perfect a versifier, the line with five accents predominates. 



ENGLISH METEES. 407 

The effect of tlie variation in the position of the accents is to prevent 
the monotony which would arise from the perpetual recurrence of 
iambuses. It answers the same purpose as the free intermixture 
of dactyls and spondees in the hexameter. The effect of the re- 
duction in the number of accents is to quicken the movement of 
the line. This explains why lines of five accents are the excep- 
tion, not the rule, in Shakspeare ; for the dramatic movement, as 
representing dialogue, and the actual conflict of passions, is essen- 
tially more rapid than either the epic or didactic. With less 
justification Wordsworth in the Excursion frequently introduces 

lines of only three accents, such as, 

/ / / 

By the deformities of brutish vice. 

Such lines can seldom be so managed as to make other than an 
unpleasing impression on the ear. The license of redundant 
syllables is allowed in dramatic, but not in epic verse. Milton 
does indeed use it, but sparingly. In eighty lines taken at random 
from the Paradise Lost I have found four instances of redun- 
dancy ; in the same number of lines similarly taken from the 
play of King John, eighteen instances. 

Choral metres may be designated according to the kind of foot 
which predominates in them. Those used in Southey's Thalaba 
are dactylic or iambic : — 

In the Dom|daniel | caverns, 

Under the | roots of the | ocean; 
and, 

Sail on, | sail on, | quoth Tha-|laba, 

Sail on, | in Al-|lah's name. | 

In Queen Mab they are iambic, and in the Strayed Reveller, 
trochaic : — 

Faster, { faster, | 

j Circe, ( Goddess. | 

Ehymed Metres. 

Every English rhymed metre is in one of three measures, the 
iambic, the trochaic, the triple. 

Again, all rhymed metres are either continuous or in stanzas. 

Continuous Verse. 
I. The following is a list of continuous rhyming metres, in 
iambic measure : — 



408 APPENDIX. 

1. Quadrisyllables; e.g.: — 

The steel | we touch | 

Forced ne'er J so much, | 

Yet still | removes | 

To that | it loves. | — Drayton (in Guest). 

2. Octosyllabics, having, in strictness, four accents; e. g.: — 

Woe worth | the chase ! | woe worth | the day ! | 
That cost | thy life, | my gal-|lant grey ! | 

This metre is extremely common ; most of the old romances are 
in it, as well as Scott's and Byron's romantic poems, (except Lara 
and the Corsair), Hudibras, Lalla JRooJch, &c. 

3. Decasyllabics, having, in strictness, five accents. If 
rhyming in couplets, they form the famous heroic metre : — 

Awake ! | my St. | John, leave | all mea-|ner things | 
To low | ambi-|tion, and | the pride | of kings. | 

It is needless to remark that an enormous quantity of verse has 
been composed in this metre. Sometimes the rhymes occur 
irregularly, as in Lycidas : — 

Fame is j the spur | that the | clear spirit ] doth raise, | 

(That last | infir-jmity | of no|ble minds) | 

To scorn | delights | and live | labo-|rious days, | &c. 

Endecasyllabics, which constitute the heroic metre of the 
Italians, fall, in our metrical system, under the description of 
redundant lines. As exceptions to the decasyllabic rule, they 
occur very frequently ; but still only serve to prove that rule, 
like other exceptions. 

4. The Alexandrine, or twelve-syllable metre, having in strict- 
ness six accents. This is the metre used by some of our old 
rhyming chroniclers, and by Drayton in his Poly-olbion ; it is 
also the heroic metre of France ; but with us it has fallen into 
disuse for three centuries. Example : — 



— \y 



The black | and dark] some nights, | the bright | and glad | some days 
Indiff|erent are | to him, | his hope | on God j that stays. 

Drayton (in Guest). 

5. The fourteen-sy liable metre, with seven accents. This 
measure Occurs in some old metrical legends, and was used by 



ENGLISH METRES. 409 

Chapman in his translation of Homer ; but it is lumbering and 
unwieldy, and as such had long been laid aside by our poets, until 
revived by Mr. F. Newman, who stripped it of rhyme, and en- 
riched it with a redundant syllable : — 

gen|tle friend ! | if thou | and I j from this | encounter sea | ping, 
Hereafjter might | for e|ver be | from eld | and death j exempted. 

The following is from Chapman : — 

To all | which Jove's | will gave | effect; [ from whom j strife first ] be- 

gunne | 
Betwixt j Atri|des, king | of men, | and The|tis' god | like sonne. | 

Combinations of some of these five metres have been occasion- 
ally employed, but with indifferent success. Thus Surrey joined 
the fourteen-sy liable metre to the Alexandrine : — 



When so|mer took | in hand | the winjter to 
With force | of might j and ver|tue great j his stor| my blasts | to quail, j 

II. Trockaics. In continuous verse, two trochaic measures are in 
use ; the fifteen syllable and the seven syllable. In the latter, eight- 
syllable lines, containing four full trochees, are of common oc- 
currence ; but the characteristic line of the measure is of seven 
syllables, and contains three trochees and a long syllable. 

1. The fifteen-syllable trochaic line is in fact a combination of 
the eight syllable and the seven syllable. It is not common ; the 
best example of it is Lochsley Hall : — 



— \j — 



Fool! a | gain the | dream, the | fancy || but I J know my [ words were | 

wild, j 
But I j count the [ grey barjbarian || lower [ than the | Christian [ child. 

2. The seven-syllable measure, both in continuous verse, and, 
as we shall presently see, in stanzas, was a great favourite with 
Keats and Shelley. In it the latter composed his Lines written in 
the Euganean Hills, and Keats his Ode on the Poets, and The 
Mermaid Tavern. Shakspeare also used it, as in the lines 
beginning 

On a | day, a | lack the | day! | 

The intermixture of eight- syllable lines, is exemplified in the 
following quotation : — 



410 APPENDIX. 

Thus ye | live on | high, and | then j 
On the | earth ye | live a | gain; | 
And the | souls ye | left be|hind you, | 
Teach us, | here, the | way to | find you. | 

Other mixed measures occasionally occur, as in Shakspeare's 
" Crabbed Age and Youth" &c; which contains fives, sixes, and 
sevens. 

III. In Triple measures, there is but one accent for every three 
syllables ; while in the iambic and trochaic, there is one for 
every two. There is a close analogy between poetry in these 
measures, and music in triple time ; a dancing lightness and 
gliding rapidity are characteristic of both. They are of three 
kinds, according to the foot which predominates in them — 
dactylic, anapasstic, and amphiambic. I can recollect no instances 
of the use of a triple measure in continuous verse, except Campbell's 
Lochiel and Walsh's Despairing Lover. The former is in amphi- 
ambic endecasyllabic rhyming couplets, each line containing three 
amphiambuses, and an iambus, 



\s <-< 



Lochiel, | Lochiel, | beware of | the day, 

"When | the Lowlands | shall meet thee | in battle | array ; j 

the latter in amphiambic fives and sixes ; each line containing 
either an amphiambus and an iambus, or two amphiambuses ; 

e.g.: — 

Tho' | his suit was | rejected, | 
He sadly | reflected 
That | a lover | forsaken j 
A new love | may get | 

But ] a neck that's ] once broken | 

Can never | be set. | 
In these examples, the words "when," "tho'," "that," and 
"but," are redundant syllables. 

Stanzas. 

The varieties of the stanza or stave are almost countless ; some 
of the most common forms only can be noticed here. I again 
adopt the division into iambic, trochaic, and triple measures. 

I. 1. The decasyllabic quatrain, or four-line stave, with 
alternating rhymes. Davenant's Gondibert, Dry den's Elegy on 
Cromwell and Annus Mirabilis, Gray's Elegy > and many other 



ENGLISH METRES. 411 

considerable poems, are in this metre. A specimen of it may be 
found at p. 125. 

2. The six-line stave is rare; it is used by Southwell in his 
pretty poems, Time goes by Turns, and Scorn not the least. It is 
the preceding four -line stave, with the addition of a rhyming 
couplet at the end. 

3. The Chaucerian heptastich, or seven-line decasyllabic 
stave. It has three rhymes ; one connecting the first and third 
lines ; another the second, fourth, and fifth — and the third, the 
sixth, and seventh lines. For an example, see p. 276. Up to 
the reign of Elizabeth, no measure was a greater favourite with 
our poets than this. 

4. The ottava rima, or eight-line decasyllabic stave. This is the 
heroic metre of the Italians, in which Tasso and Ariosto WTote. 
With us it has been seldom used ; the chief example is Don Juan. 
It has three rhymes, thus arranged : — 1, 3, 5 ; — 2, 4, 6 ; — 7, 8. 

5. The Spenserian stanza, or nine-line decasyllabic stave, 
closed by an Alexandrine. It also has three rhymes, thus 
arranged : — 1, 3 ; — 2, 4, 5, 7 ; — 6, 8, 9. For examples, see 
pages 281—3. 

6. The sonnet, or four teen-line decasyllabic stave, of which 
there are several varieties. The sonnets of Shakspeare scarcely 
deserve the name in a metrical sense ; their construction being so 
inartificial. They have no fewer than seven rhymes, and consist 
merely of three quatrains, with alternating rhymes, followed by 
a rhyming couplet. All our other poets, so far as I know, follow, 
in writing sonnets, the Petrarcan model, with some unimportant 
deviations. The sonnet of Petrarch is composed of two quatrains, 
with extreme and mean rhymes,* two in number ; followed by 
six lines, of which the rhymes are arranged in several different 
ways. The most ordinary case is that in which the six lines have 
but two rhymes, and are arranged in three rhyming couplets. 
Milton's sonnet On his deceased Wife is an example of this kind. 
If the six lines have three rhymes, they usually follow each other 
in order, as shown in the following passage, taken from Milton's 
sonnet to Cyriack Skinner : — 



* That is, rhymes connecting the first with the fourth, and the second 
with the third, lines. 



412 APPENDIX. 

To measure life learn thou betimes, and know 
Towards solid good what leads the nearest way ; 
For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, 
And disapproves that care, though wise in show, 
That with superfluous burden loads the day, 
And when Grod sends a cheerful hour, refrains. 

Other varieties of arrangement may be found in the sonnets 
of Drummond, Milton, and Wordsworth ; but they only affect 
the six concluding lines. The two opening quatrains, with their 
two rhymes, and the peculiar arrangement of these rhymes, are 
a fixed element in the sonnet. It has generally, at least in 
Italian poetry, four, and must never have more than five 
rhymes. 

It would be tedious to enumerate all the different kinds of 
staves formed out of octosyllabics, and the combination of these 
with shorter lines. Three of these staves, the octosyllabic 
quatrain, the quatrain in eights and sixes, and the quatrain in 
sixes, with the third line octosyllabic, are commonly called, Long 
measure, Common measure, and Short measure. The six-line 
stave, in eights and sixes, was a favourite measure with the old 
romance writers. I call it the " Sir Thopas metre," because 
Chaucer uses it for his " Rime of Sir Thopas," in the Canterbury 
Tales. A rough specimen of it may be seen at page 70. The 
eight-line stave, formed of two quatrains in eights, or in eights 
and sixes, with alternating rhymes, is also common. But enough 
has now been said to enable the student to recognise and describe 
for himself any iambic measure that he may meet with. 

II. Trochaic staves, though much used by our poets, do not 
present the same well-marked forms as the iambic staves. The 
predominant line is of seven syllables, that is, contains three 
trochees and a long syllable. However, octosyllabic lines of 
four trochees are of constant occurrence in heptasyllabic staves. 
The six-line stave in sevens, exemplified by the lines at page 328, 
by Jonson's Hymn to Diana, (1.) and many other pieces, and the 
eight-line stave in eights and sevens, exemplified by Glover's 
Hosier's Ghost, (2.) are perhaps the most important among pure 
trochaic staves. 

— v^ — \-» — w — 

(1.) Queen and | huntress, | chaste and j fair, &c. 
(2.) As near | Porto | bello | lying | 
On the j gently | swelling | flood, | 



ENGLISH METRES. 413 

A very beautiful metre sometimes results from the combination 
of a trochaic with an iambic measure. Thus in Shelley's Sky- 
lark, (see p. 337), a trochaic quatrain in sixes and fives is 
followed by an Alexandrine, the length and weight of which 
serves beautifully to balance and tone down the light joyousness 
of the trochaics. Shelley has given us another beautiful combi- 
nation, that of trochees with dactyls. Example : — 

— \y — \-> — v*> 

When the | lamp is | shattered, 

The | light in the | dust lies | dead, &e. 

III. In triple measures, three important staves may be distin- 
guished, the quatrain, the six-line stave, and the eight-line stave. 
Each of these three again may be either dactylic, anapaestic, or 
amphiambic, but the last is infinitely the most common variety of 
the three. 

1. Quatiwins. — The dactylic quatrain, each line of which 
contains three dactyls, followed either by a long syllable or a 
trochee, is not very common. There is an example in one of 
Byron's Hebrew Melodies ; the " Song of Saul before his last 
battle:" — 



Farewell to | others, but [ never we | part | 
Heir to my | roy-alty, | son of my | heart ; 
and again, 

Brightest and | best of the | sons of the | morning. — Heber. 

The anapaestic quatrain is distinguishable from the dactylic by 
the fact of its commencing with an anapaest. In triple measures, 
the foot with which a poem opens is nearly always a key to its 
metre. In the following example spondees are mixed with the 
anapaests : — 

\S \J — — — \-< V — \s \s 

Not a drum | was heard, | not a fu]neral note. | — Wolfe. 

A purer specimen may be found in one of the Hebrew melodies, 
in which the line contains three anapaests : — 

And the voice | of my mourn |ing is o'er, | 
And the moun| tains behold | me no more. | 

The amphiambic quatrain, in which each line has either four 
amphiambuses, or three with an iambus, is the metre of a great 



414 APPENDIX. 

number of ballads and songs. The rhymes are sometimes coupled, 
sometimes alternate. Examples : — 

I saw from ] the beach, when | the morning [ was shining, | 

A bark o'er | the waters | move glorious |ly on. | — Moore. 
Count Albert | has armed him | the Paynim | among, | 
Though ] his heart it | was false, yet | his arm it 1 was strong. 

Scott. 

2. The six-line stave, triple measure, is only used, so far as I 
know, in amphiambic endecasyllabics. Scott's Lochinvar is an 
instance. 

3. The eight-line stave in the amphiambic tetrameter, or tetra- 
meter catalectic,* is a noble measure. Examples : — 

\_» — 

Then blame not [ the bard if | in pleasure's f soft dream, | &c— Moore. 

I climbed the | dark brow of | the mighty | HelveHyn. | — Scott. 
There are also eight-line staves in fives, and in fives and sixes. 
These are dactylic. Examples : — 

— \j \j — \s 

Over the | mountains, 
\s — \j \j — 

And ] over the | waves, ] 

— \J vy — vy 

Under the ] fountains, 
«^ — \j \j — 

And | under the | graves, &e. 

"Where shall the | traitor rest, | 
He tf ~e dejceiver, | &c. — Scott. 

A dactylic stave in sixes, fives, and fours, varying in the num- 
ber of lines, was used by Hood with great effect in his Bridge of 
Sighs. 

— y^ v^ \s \s 

One more Unfortunate | 
Weary of ] breath j 

— \j \j \s \y 

Eashly im|portunate | 
Gone to her j death. J 

There are many other varieties, but the rules already given 
will probably enable the student to name and classify them as he 
falls in with them. 

* A line which falls short by one syllable of the full measure of four 
amphiambuses, is so designated. 



ENGLISH METRES. 41, 



Pindaric Measures. 



These hold an intermediate position between stanzas and con- 
tinuous verse. They are divided into strophes, which seldom 
contain more than twenty-eight or fewer than fourteen lines. 
Irregularity may be said to be their law ; the lines, as well as the 
strophes, are of different lengths, and the rhymes are arranged in 
half-a-dozen different ways. For an example, see p. 327. As 
a general rule they are in iambic measure ; but trochaic lines are 
sometimes introduced with striking effect. Thus in Gray's Bard, 
which consists of nine strophes, six containing fourteen, and three 
twenty lines, each shorter strophe opens with a trochaic line, so 
as to produce the sense of abruptness which the poet was aiming 
at : — 

Ruin | seke thee, | ruthless | king, [ 
Confujsion on | thy banjners wait. | 



INDEX. 



Abbreviations : — Bp. for Bishop ; Abp. for Archbishop flor. for floruit 
(flourished) ; n, for note. "When only one date is given, it is that of death. 



ABE 

PAGE 

ABELAED 14 
Absalom and Ahitophel 306 
Addison, Jos. (1672-1719) 

123, 160, 165, 169, 178, 265, 316 
Adolphus, John (1770-1815) . 369 
Akenside, Mark (1721-1770) . 185 
Alcuin (732-801) .... 2 
Aldrich, Dr. HL (1617-1710) . 172 
Alexandrine metre, origin of 

the name 37 

Alford, Mich. (1587-1652) . 381 
Allegorical poetry . . . . 278 
Allen, Cardinal (1532-1591) . 102 
Andrewes, Dr. L. (1555-1626) 102 
Anselm, St. (1033-1109) . . 13 
Arbuthnot, Dr. John (1675- 

1735) 177 

Arnold, Dr. (1795-1812) 368, 369 
Ascham, Eoger (1515-1568) 78, 82 
Atterbury, Francis (Bp.) 

(1662-1731) 161 

Austen, Miss Jane (1775- 

1817) ...... 231, 316 

Autobiographies 372 



BACON, Erancis, Lord, 
(1561-1626), 83, 96, 99, 

105-7, 368, 381, 391, 395 
Bacon, Eoger (1211-1292) . 21 
Bale, John (Bp.) (1195-1563), 80 81 
Barbour, John (1316-1396), 58, 261 



BRO 

PAGE 

Barclay, Alex. (flor. circa 

1500) 66 

Barrow, Isaac (1630-1677), 115, 383 
Baxter, Eich. (1615-1691) 

111, 116, 372, 381 
Beattie, Jas. (1735-1802) . . 386 
Beaumont, Fran. (1586-1615) 95 
Becon, Thos. (1512 ?-1570 ?) 81 

Bede (673-735) 2 

Belsham, Wm. (1753-1828) . 369 
Bentley, Dr. Eich. (1662- 

1712) 171, 201 

Beowulf 3 

Berkeley (Bp.) (1681-1753) 

201, 201, 381, 387 

Bernard, St 15 

Beveridge, Wm. (Bp.) (1637- 

1708) 380 

Bingham, Jos. (1668-1723) . 380 

Biography 372-376 

Blackmore, Sir Eich. (died 

1729) ...... 168, 212 

Boccaccio (died 1375) ... 52 
Bolingbroke, Lord (1678- 

1751) 200 

Boswell, Jas. (1710-1795). 199, 371 
Bowles, Eev. W. Lisle (1762- 

1850) 358 

Boyle, Charles (1676-1731) . 172 

Brenton, Capt 371 

Briggs, H. (1560-1631) . 105 n. 
Broome, Wm. (died 1745) . 161 



E E 



418 



INDEX. 



BRO 

PAGE 

Brown, Dr. Thos. (1778-1820) 386 
Browne, Sir Thos. (1605- 

1682) 152, 395 

Browne, Wm. (1590-1645) . 310 
Buckingham, Duke of (1627- 

1688) 133 

BuU, Geo. (Bp.) (1634-1710) 

145, 377 
Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton 

342, 343, 346 

Bunyan, John (1628-1688) . 138 

\ Burke, Edm. (1730-1797), 194, 196 

208, 210, 353-4, 391 

Burnet, Gilb. (Bp.) (1643- 

1715) 180, 364, 380 

Burney, Frances (1752-1840) 

192, 375 
\Burns, Robert (1759-1796), 187, 325 
Burton, Robert (1576-1740) . 97 
Burton, T. (flor. 1645) ... 375 
Butler, Alban (1710-1773) . 384 
Butler, Jos. (Bp.) (1692-1752) 

201, 207, 381, 386 
Butler, Sam. (1612-1680) 

131, 133, 305 
Byron, George, Lord (1788- 
1S24) . 219, 224, 304, 322, 335 

CAEDMON (circa 680) . 3, 289 
Cambridge University, 

foundation of 28 

Camden, Wm. (1557-1623) . 99 
CampbeU, Thos. (1777-1844) 

228, 327 
Campion, Edm. (1540-1581) . 103 
Canning, Geo. (1770-1827) . 348 
Canterbury Tales .... 270 
Caradoc (circa 1150) ... 10 
Carew, Thos. (died 1639) 118, 324 
Carte, Thos. (1686-1754) 197, 369 
Cartwright, Thos. (died 1603) 101,, 

Cato, tragedy of 262 

Care, Wm. (1637-1713) . . 380 
Caxton, Wm. (1412-1492) 63, 79 
Centlivre, Mrs. (1680-1723) . 171 
ChaUoner, Bishop (1691-1781) 204 
Chalmers, Alex. (1759-1834) . 373 
Chalmers, Thos. (1780-1847). 381 
Chapman, Geo. (1557-1634) . 87 
Chatham, Lord (1708-1778) . 193 
Chaucer, Geoffrey (1328- 

1400) . . . 47, 60, 270, 279 
Chesterfield, Lord (1694-1773) 376 
Childe Harold 335 



DRA 

PAGE 

Chillingworth, Wm. (1602- 

1644) 145, 383 

Chubb, Thos. (1679-1747) . 201 
Churchill, Chas. (1731-1764) 

184, 304 
Cibber, Colley (1671-1757) . 170 
Clarendon, Edw. Hyde, Lord 

(1609-1674) 361 

Clarke. Dr. Sam. (1675-1729) 378 
Cleveland, John (1613-1659) 116 
Cobbett, Wm. (1762-1835) . 235 
Coleridge, Hartley (1796- 

1849) 373 

* Coleridge, S. T. (1772-1834) 

226, 326, 389, 398 
Colet, Dean (1466-1519) . 74 
Collier, Jeremy (1650-1726) . 136 
Collins, Anthony (1676-1729) 201 
Collins, Wm. (1720-1756) . 185 
Colman/the elder (1733-1794) 189 
Congreve, Wm. (1669-1728) . 135 
Cowley, Abr. (1618-1667) 

115-7, 242, 326 
v Cowper, Wm. (1731-1800) 

185, 321, 329, 334 

Coxe, Wm. (1747-1829) . . 369 

Crabbe, Geo. (1754-1832) 225, 277 

Cranmer, Thos. (Abp.)(1489- 

1556) ....... 81 

Crashaw, Rich, (circa 1650), 316, 117 
Cromwell's letters . . . . 376 

Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688) 

146, 387 

DANIEL, Sam. (1562-1619), 
87, 99, 
Davies, Sir John (1570- 

1626) 334 

Davy, Sir Humphry (1778- 

1829) 221 

--Defoe, Daniel (1661-1731) 

175, 342, 346 
Denham, Sir John (1615- 

1668) 117, 312 

Descriptive poetry . . 311-314 
Didactic poetry . . . 289-297 
Dodd, Chas. (flor. 1740) . . 384 
Dodwell, H. (1641-1711) . . 380 
Donne, Dr. John (1573-1631), 114-6 
Douglas, Gawain (1474-1522) 70 
Doyle, Dr. James (Bp.) (1787- 

1834) 236, 383 

Drama, English, its origin and 

progress 88-92 



INDEX. 



419 



DRA 

PAGE 

Dramatic poetry 263 

Dramatic unities 91 

Drayton, Mieh.(1563-1631), 311, 337 
Drummond, Wm. (1585-1649) 95 
Dryden, John (1631-1700), 116, 118, 
124-30, 132-5, 277, 288, 299, 
306, 316, 327, 398 
Dunbar, Wm. (died 1521 ?) . 69 



■iTVDGEWORTB^Miss (1767- 

Jj 1849) 234 

Edwards, Bryan (1743-1800) 370 
Elegiac poetry .... 328-331 
Ellis, George (1753- ■• 815) . 346 
Elphinstone, Hon. M. (1779- 

1859) 370 

Epic poetry 241-259 

Erasmus (1467-1536) ... 79 
Erskine, Thomas (1750-1823) 194 

Essay on Man 290 

Ethel werd (circa 960) . . . 2 
Etherege, Sir G. (nor. 1670) . 135 
Evelyn, John (1620-1706) 144, 375 
Excursion, The 339 



FABLES 284 

Fabyan, Eob. (died 1512) 80 

Faery Queen, the 280 

Fairfax. Edward (died 1632) . 86 

Falconer, Wm. (1730-1769) . 277 

Farquhar, Geo. (1678-1707) . 170 
Fell, Dr. John (Bp.) (1625- 

1685) 380 

Felltham, Owen (1608 ?- 

1660?) 152,395 

Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730) . 161 

Ferguson, Adam (1724-1816) 367 
Fiction, works of . . . 340, 346 

Field, Bichard (1561-1616) . 377 

Fielding, Henry (1707-1754) 190, 
345, 398 
Filmer, Sir Eobert (died 

1688) 151, 389 

Fletcher, John (1576-1625) . 95 

Foote, Samuel (1721-1777) . 189 
Forbes. William (Bp.) (1585- 

1634) 379 

Fortescue, Sir John (circa 

1485) 78 

Foster, John (1770-1843) . . 395 

Foxe, John (1517-1587) . . 99 



HAM 

PAGB 

Francis, Sir Philip (1740- 

1818) 195 

Froissart, Jean (1337-1401) . 45 

Fuller, Thomas (1608-1661) . 140, 

141, 373 



GALE, Thomas (1636-1702) 137 
Garth, Dr. Sam. (1665- 

1718) 168 

Gascoyne, Geo. (1540-1577)97, 397 
Gataker, T. (1574-1654) . . 137 
Gay, John (1688-1732) 166, 171, 
284 
Geoffrey of Monmouth (died 

1154) 10, 365 

Gibbon, Edward (1737- 

1794) 198, 367, 372 

Gifford William (1757-1826) . 304 
Glanville, Banulf de (died 

1190) 22 

Glover, Bichard (1712-1785) 

168, 242, 321 
Godwin, William (1756-1836) 

192, 208, 342 
"^Goldsmith, Oliver (1728- 

1774) . . . 185, 189, 192, 199 

Gore, Mrs 345 

Gosson, Stephen (1554-1623) 98 
Gother, John (1650-1704) 146, 383 
Gower, John (1320-1402?) 47, 55, 
277 
Grafton, Bichard (circa 1572) 

80, 98 

Grattan, Henry (1746-1820) 194 

- Gray, Thomas (1716-1771) . 184, 

322, 331 

Grocyn, William (died 1519) . 73 

Grossetete, (Bp.)(1175-1253), 27, 43 



HAILES, Lord (1726-1792) 369 
Hakluyt, Bich. (1553- 

1616) 96 

Hales, Alexander (died 1245) . 16 
Halifax, Charles Montague, 

Earl of (1661-1715) . . . 129 
Hall, Edward (died 1547) 80, 99 
Hall, Joseph (Bp.) (1574- 

1656) . 120, 142, 151, 300, 395 
Hall, Eobert (1764-1831) . . 235 
Hallam, Henry (1777-1859) . 398 
Hamilton, Sir W. (1788-1856) 

385, 386 



E e 2 



420 



INDEX. 



HAM 

PAGE 

Hammond, H. (1605-1660) . 379 

Hare, Julius (1795-1855) . . 381 
Harrington, James (1611— 

1677) 151, 391 

Harrington, Sir John (1561- 

1612) ........ 86 

Hartley,David (1705-1757) 207, 386 

Hawes, Stephen (died 1509 ?) 65 
Hawkesworth, Dr. John 

(1715-1773) 197 

Hazlitt, William (1778-1830) 398 

» Henryson, Eobert (circa 1500) 68 

V Herbert, George (1593-1632) 117 

Heroic poetry 264 

Herrick, Eobert (1591-1661 ?) 117 

Herschel, Sir John .... 385 

Hey wood, John (died 1565) . 67 

Higden, Banulph (circa 1360) 20 

Hill, Eowland (1745-1833) . 235 

Hind and Panther .... 290 

Historical works 359 

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679) 

104, 147, 389 

Hogg, James (1772-1835). . 221 

Holinshed, Eaph. (circa 1580) 99 

Home, John (1722-1808) . . 188 

Hooke, Nath. (died 1763) . . 367 
Hooker, Eichard (1553-1600) 

84, 101, 383 

Hooper, Bishop 81 

Hope, Thomas (1767-1831) . 343 
Hume, David (1711-1776) 

197, 205, 208, 369, 372, 386, 388, 
395 

Humour, works of . . . . 349 
Huntingdon, Henry of (flor. 

1150) 18 

Hutcheson, Francis (1694- 

1746) 207 



I 



SCANUS, Josephus (circa 
1224) 31 



JAMES I. (1566-1625) . . 102 
James I. (of Scotland) 

(1394-1436) 58 

James, William (died 1827) . 371 
John of Salisbury (died 

1182) 27 

Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784) 
181, 188, 191, 195, 199, 297, 373, 
398 



MAC 

PAGE 

Jonson, Ben (1574-1637) 

94, 114, 263, 323 

Journalism 356 

Junius, letters of .... 195 



KAYE, John (circa 1470) . 68 
Keats, John (1795-1821) 223 
Kippis, Andrew (1725-1795). 373 
Znolles, Bich. (1545?-1610) 

100, 369 
Knyghton, Wm. (circa 1400) . 45 



LAMB, Charles (1775-1835) 236 
Langlande, Eobert (flor. 

1360) 56, 279 

Lanigan, Dr. (1758-1828) . 369 
Lardner, Dr. Nath. (1684- 

1768) 173, 381 

Latimer, Bishop (1490-1555) 81 
Laud, Wm. (Abp.) (1573- 

1645) 383 

Law, Wm. (1686-1761) . . 381 

LayaAon (flor. 1200) ... 40 

Leighton (Abp.) (1611-1684) 379 

Leland, John (died 1552) . 79 

Leslie, Charles (1650-1722) . 381 
Lightfoot, John (1602- 

1675) 379 

Lingard, John (1771-1851) . 369 
Locke, John (1632-1704) 

149, 387, 391 

Lockhart, J. G. (1794-1854) . 374 

Lodge, T. (1563 ?-1625) . . 96 

Lombard, Peter 15 

Lovelace, Col. Bich. (1618- 

1658) 118 

Lowth, Eob. (Bp.) (1710- 

1787) 190 

Ludlow, Edm. (1620-1693) 

140, 360 

Lydgate, John (1375-1430?) 57 

Lyly, John (1554-1603?) . 96 
Lyndsay, Sir David (1490- 

1555) 71 

Lyrical poetry . . . , 314-328 



MACAULAY, Lord (1800- 
1859) .... 327, 369 
Mackenzie, H. (1745-1831) . 192 
Mackintosh, Sir J. (1765- 
1832). . . . .386 



INDEX. 



421 



MAL 

PAGE 

Malmesbury, William of (flop. 

1140) .... 6, 10, 19, 46 
Mandeville, Sir John (1322- 

1382) 45, 59 

Manning, Eobert (flop. 1310) . 42 
Map or Mapes, Walter (circa 

1210?) 31 

Marlowe, Chp. (1564-1593) 

83, 92, 324 
Marryatt, Capt. (1792-1848) . 342 
Marvel! Andrew (1620-1678) 

123, 141 
Mason, W. (1725-1797) . . 189 
Massinger, Philip (1584-1640) 95 
May, Thomas (1595-1650) . 140 
Meppick, James (1720-1769) . 285 
Middleton, Conyeps (1683- 

1750) 204 

Mill, James (1773-1836) . 370 
MiU, Mr. John Stuart . . 385 
Milnep, John (Bp.) (1752- 

1826) 383 

Hilton, John (1608-1674) ' - 

119-123, 140, 144, 151, 241, 263, 

315, 330, 390 

Minot, Laurence (cipca 1360) . 58 

Miscellaneous poetry . 332-339 

Mitfopd, William (1743-1827) 

199, 367 
Montague, Chas. (see Halifax) 
Moore, Edward (1712-1757) . 189 
Moore, Thomas (1780-1852) 

221, 233. 287, 308-325, 369, 375 
More, Henry (1614-1687) . 387 
More, Sip Thomas (1480- 

1535) 80, 81, 368 

Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805). 189 



"VTAPIER, Sir William . . 371 
IN Narrative poetry . . 266-289 

Nash, T. (1558-1601) ... 97 

Neal, Daniel (1678-1743) . . 368 

Newspapers, origin of . . . 98 
Newton, Sir Isaac (1642- 

1727) 152 

Noble, Mark (died 1827) . . 375 

Novum Organum 384 







CCAM, William of (1300- 
1347) 16,17 



QUA 

PAGE 

Occleve, Thomas (1370 ?- 

1454 ?) 57 

Oratorv 352 

Orme, Eob. (1728-1801) . . 370 

Otway, Thos. (1651-1685) . 126 

Owen, Dr. John (1616-1683) 110 
Oxford University, foundation 

of 26 



PAINE, Thos. (1737-1809) 208 
Paley, Wm. (1743-1805) 

207, 381 

Pamphlets _ . . 356 

Paper, an Arabian invention . 30 

Paradise Lost 241 

Paris, Matthew (circa 1259) . 20 
Parnell, Thos. (1679-1718), 166, 278 
Parsons, Eob. (1550?-1610) 

103, 383 
Pastoral poetry . . . 309-311 
Pearson, John (Bp.) (1612- 

1686) 146, 380 

Pepys, Sam. (1632-1703) 141, 375 
Perkins, Wm. (1558-1602) . 379 
Petrarch (died 1374) ... 48 
Philips, Edw. (1630-1686?) . 375 
Pitseus, John (1560-1616) . 373 
Pitt, Wm. (1759-1806) . . 194 
Platonizing divines .... 146 
Pococke, Edw. (1604-1691) . 190 
Pole, Card. (1500-1558) . . 77 
Political science .... 380 
Pool, Matth. (1624-1679) . . 379 
.Pope, Alex. (1688-1744) 158, 292, 
297, 300-3, 312, 317, 329, 333 

character of, by Byron . 358 

Porson, Rich. (1759-1808) . 190 
Porter, Miss Jane .... 342 
Potter, J. (Abp.) (1674-1747) 

137, 380 
Priestley, Jos. (1734-1804), 372, 386 
Prior, Matt. (1666-1721) 167, 129 
Printing, invention of . . . 63 
Ptolemaic system .... 255 
Purchas, Sam. (1577-1628) . 96 
Puttenham, Geo. (circa 1585) 67 



QUAELES, Francis (1592- 
1644) 117, 334 



422 



INDEX. 



RAD 

PAGE 

RADCLIFFE, Anne (1764- 
1823) ...... 193 

Raleigh, Sir W. (1552-1618) 

83, 87, 99, 324, 330, 365 
Eapin, Paul (1661-1725) 181, 369 
Beid, Dr. Thos. (1710-1796) 

206, 386 
Eeeve, Clara (1725-1803). . 342 
Eeynolds, Sir Joshua (1723- 

1792) 210, 398 

Eichardson, Sam. (1689-1761) 

190, 345 

Eidley, Bishop 81 

Eobert ofGloucester(flor. 1280) 41 
Eobertson, ¥m. (1721-1793) 

198, 369 
Eochester, John Wilmot, Earl 

of (1647-1680) .... 126 

Eomances, metrical . . . . 267 

Eomantic poems, by Scott . 285 

by Byron . 286 

Eoscoe, Wm. (1753-1831) . 369 
Eoscommon, Wentworth Dil- 
lon, Earl of (1633-1684)130, 158 
Eowe, Nich. (1673-1718) . . 170 
Euffhead, Owen (1723?-1769) 

199, 375 
Eushworth, John (1606-1690) 140 

Euskin, Mr 398 

Eussell, Dr. W. (1746-1794) 

199, 369 

SACHEVEEELL, Dr. (died 
1724) 347 

Sackville, Thos. (1536-1600) 65, 90 
Sanderson, Eobert (Bp.) 1587- 

1663) 379 

Satirical poetry .... 298-309 
Saxon Chronicle . . . . 5, 10 
*" Scott, Sir "Walter (1771-1832) 

215-223, 320, 327, 343-5, 369, 
372, 375 
Scotus Duns (1265-1308) . 16 
Selden, John (1584-1654) 136, 137 
Settle Elkanah (1648-1724) 127 
ShadweU, T. (1640-1692) 

127, 129 
Shaftesbury, Lord (1671-1713) 
* Shakspeare, William (1564- 

1616) 83, 87, 

93-5 134 324 
Sheffield, Lord (1649-1721) . ' 126 
-Shelley, Percy B. (1792-1822) 

223, 322, 331, 337 



\' 8 



TIL 

PAGE 

Shelley, Mrs 342 

Shenstone, Wm. (1714-1763) 

185, 310 
Sheridan, E. B. (1751-1817) 

189, 194 
Sherlock, Dr. Wm. (1641- 

1707) 378 

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554- 

1586) .... 83, 96, 97, 396 
Skelton, John (died 1529) 66, 303 

Smalridge, Dr 347 

Smith, Adam (1723-1790) 

207, 209, 386 
Smith, Sidney (1777-1845) 

235, 352 
Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771) 

191, 346 
South; Dr. Eobert (1633- 

1714) 353, 381 

Southey, Eobert (1774-1843) 

221, 225, 228, 372, 375 
Southwell, Eobert (1560- 

1596) 88 

Speed, John (1552-1629) . 98 
penser, Edmund (1553-1599) 

83, 86, 97, 333 
Sprat, Thomas (1636-1713) . 134 
Stanley, T. (1625-1678) . .137 
Stapleton, Thos. (1535-1598) 

73, 383 
Steele, Eich. (1671-1729) . 178 
Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) 

191, 350 
Stillingfieet, Edward (1635- 

1699) 380 

Stow, John (1525 ?-1605). . 98 
Surrey, Earl of (1520-1547) 65, 66 
Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745) 
160, 166, 174-177, 179, 346, 357 



TASSO (1544-1595) ... 244 
Taylor, Jeremy (1613- 
1667) . 142, 145, 353, 379, 381 
Temple, Sir W. (1628-1698) . 172 

Thackeray, Mr 398 

Theology 376-383 

Thompson, Jas. (1700-1748) 

167, 170, 283, 313 

Thrale, Mrs 285 

Tickell, Thomas (1686-1740) 

160, 168 
Tillotson, John (Abp.) (1630- 
1694 381 



INDEX. 



423 



TIN 

PAGE 

Tindal, Dr. Matthew (1657- 

1733) 163, 200 

Toland, John (1669-1722) 

200, 375 
Trevisa, John (flor. 1387) 21,79 
Trinity College, Dublin, foun- 
dation of ...... 137 

Trivet, Nicholas (1258?-1328) 20 

Troubadours 33 

Trouveres 33 

Tucker, Abr. (1743-1805) . 207 
Tyndale, Wm.( 1485-1536) . 81 



UDALL, Nicholas (1506- 
1564) 90 

Usher, James (Abp.) (1581- 
1656) 137, 380 

YANBBUGH, Sir John 
(1672-1726) .... 170 
Vicar of Bray, the .... 309 
Vinesauf, Geoffrey (flor. circa 
1200) 20 



WAGE, Robert (flor. 1170) 
35, 38 
Wall, Wm. (1646-1733) . . 378 
Waller, Edm. (1605-1687) 

118, 324 



YOU 

PAGE 

Walpole, Horace (1717-1797) 

193, 210, 364, 368, 375,398 
Walsh, Wm. (1663-1709) . 159 
Walton, Brian (1600-1661) . 379 
Walton, Izaak (1593-1683) . 373 
Warburton, W. (1698-1779) . 202 
Warton, T. (1729-1790) . . 199 
Waterland, Dan. (1683-1740) 378 
Watts, Isaac (1674-1748) . . 169 
Webbe, Wm. (flor. 1586) . . 397 
Wendover, Boger (circa 1237) 20 
Wesley, John (1703-1791) . 203 
Whately (Abp.) . . . 352, 385 
Whitlock, Bulstr. (1605-1675) 

140, 361 
Wicliffe, John (1324-1384) . 60 
Wilkie, Wm. (1721-1772) . 242 
Wither, George (1588-1667) 

118, 123 

Wolsey, Card. (1471-1530) . 76 

Wood, Anthony (1632-1695) 141 

Woolston, Thos. (1669-1733) 200 

\Wordsworth, William (1770- 

1850) 229, 332, 339 

Wotton, H. (1568-1639) . . 172 
Wyat, Thos. (1503-1541) 65, 67 
Wycherley, Wm. (1640-1715) 159 



YOUNG, Edward (1681- 
1765) 



185 



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